


Please Keep Your Pants on Inside the Vehicle at All Times

by orphan_account



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: And Spock, Awkwardness, Do Not Be a Homewrecker, Humor, Jim Is Pining, M/M, Seriously You Have to Feel a Little Sorry for Jim, Sex Pollen But Not Really, Someone Give Bones More Alcohol, Space Exploration, The Bridge Crew Is Awesome, The Enterprise is Cursed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 22:50:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The greater universe turns out to be quite a bit kinkier than James T. Kirk was led to believe, and this makes his life very, very hard.<br/>No, really.  Don't listen to Bones.<br/>Or: the story where Spock finds out that Jim has a crush and is Not Happy about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hahahaha... this one actually has a lot written in it. So, again, hopefully, I will actually finish things on this sight, upsetting the precedent of my sad, sad little life.  
> Um.  
> Star Trek is not mine.  
> This was inspired by a lot of sex pollen fics and wanting to write one where not only is our intrepid captain stuck resisting it... But stuck resisting it many times. And no one is sympathetic (except me, because poor Jim).  
> Mostly, this is my poorly disguised attempt at humor. I know, I know, I don't fool anyone. And just a head's up; in spite of the subject matter, you guys probably aren't getting any sex scenes. So keep that in mind and don't act gut shot later on. Mm-kay? Thanks.

It’s really stupid how it happens.  
  
Basically, the only people who are supposed to know are Bones (who gets to tease Jim about his planet-sized crush because they’re best friends and if Bones can’t be deeply disturbed by something Jim is doing, it just isn’t life) and maybe Uhura because of her magical Girl Who Is Dating the Object of Your Affections and Therefore Knows You Are Full of Shit superpowers.  
  
And, okay, Sulu and Chekov are definitely betting about something they won’t tell Jim because he does not buy their excuse about chess scores _at all_. Also, Scotty might know because Jim has this really bad habit of getting drunk in Scotty’s company—but even if he did _notice_ Jim start whining about how his First Officer doesn’t like him enough, he didn’t pay it much attention because it was neither to do with their ship nor to do with what they were drinking and Scotty is a simple sort of human being.  
  
So really, Bones can go on and on about how unsubtle Jim is, and how he brought all of this on himself, but Jim has been the very soul of discretion, thank you, and on a ship of about four hundred, the fact that only two to five people know that Jim has… _ungentlemanly problems_ with Spock is something to be proud of. So Bones can stuff it. Jim is subtle as hell.  
  
And it’s totally not Jim’s fault.  
  
Like he said, it was _really_ stupid.

\----

“It’s like the universe is out to get me,” Jim whines over the exam table. Today there is no deeply terrified ensign sitting on it, praying his vital readings do not show what he was doing last night. It’s just that Bones is surprisingly good at cards and Jim feels contractually obligated to lure him out of his cave at least once a day. He only made it as far as sick bay this time, but sometimes Jim can even drag Bones to actual rooms, with actual windows, and an actual dearth of sick people.  
  
(The reason Bones hates leaving sick bay is secretly just because he won’t have twenty thousand different hypos to stab Jim with for obscure reasons anymore. Bones thinks Jim doesn’t know this but he so does.)  
  
Today this section of sick bay is mostly empty because Jim’s best friend and CMO of a Federation Starship got fed up with human contact and was hiding from everybody like a great big girl. Jim, of course, is too awesome to pay attention to that. Right now there’s one deeply sedated woman on a bed in the back of the room, a little bit of unobtrusive bleeping from the machinery, and then you’ve got Jim and Bones playing cards while Bones scowls creases into his forehead.  
  
Bones throws a card down. “Yes, because captaincy and heroic canonization are just agonizing fates, aren’t they?”  
  
“Shut up,” Jim waves a finger at him. “You’re chief medical officer of my starship—a mighty fancy post, if I do say so myself—and what are you doing?”  
  
“Flying through space,” Bones says in the tones of a man discussing poisonous insects crawling upon his person, yea at this very moment.  
  
“Exactly.” Jim tosses a card of his own. “It’s like we’re cursed!”  
  
“So, Spock turned you down for chess again, did he?” Bones gives Jim a flat look. Jim scowls back manfully.  
  
“No. I didn’t ask him.”  
  
 _Yes, you did_ , Bones’s expression says. _You terrible liar._  
  
Jim ignores this like Bones is a hostile military leader telling him all about how he cannot win and surrender now pitiful mortal because fuck you, he can definitely win.  
  
(With anyone but Spock).  
  
…Bones can prove nothing.  
  
“I was talking about the last mission,” Jim informs Bones, and offers a saccharine smile when Bones starts cursing. The cards are not in poor Bones’s favor.  
  
(Because he’s playing against Jim.)  
  
“I hate go fish,” Bones growls.  
  
“Then hide in sick bays with enough patients for poker,” Jim replies, emanating his usual levels of magnanimity as he continues to soundly beat his friend’s ass at children’s card games. “Or do you want to play gin?”  
  
Bones flips him off.  
  
“I feel like something has to be wrong with our mission parameters,” Jim sighs. “This was the _third time_.”  
  
“Yup,” Bones says miserably. He’s prompted to take another sip from the whiskey glass, which has gone mostly untouched until now. Jim winces with sympathy. Fun, it has not been for either of them. Jim got to deal with the epic shitstorm of _what is this I don’t even_ , proceed to _oh god, it’s trying to kill all of us, seriously, this happens **every goddamn time**_ , and Bones got to deal with the fallout in the form of two dozen horny away team members.  
  
“Sex pollen,” Bones says. He glowers into his whiskey glass, as if daring it to make him drunk enough to start flipping off random dust motes. Alas, Jim can see sobriety clinging to him like an unwanted patch of lint and Bones ends up offering up a really bad card and drawing.  
  
“ _Sex pollen_ ,” Jim repeats.  
  
Blessedly, Bones does not make the obvious comment. Jim has been getting that one all day, and slowly approaching the moment where he does finally haul off and punch someone in the face. Having to deal with a roofied-up crew slowly losing their minds (while feeling less than staunchly sane himself) is not an experience that anyone wants to deal with. It’s neither sexy nor funny. And no, for the last time, Jim does not get a kick out of seeing mentally-impaired people get it on.  
  
The _Enterprise_ is barely two weeks into their five year mission and Jim has had to avert similarly sexually horrific crises three times. It pretty much sucks. Jim has already messaged command about whether the great reaches of uncharted space really are supposed to be this sex-obsessed. He got back politely confused replies. Either they’re bullshitting him and laughing about this in the privacy of their offices, or Jim just has the worst luck ever between the sex pollen, the weird alien orgy death ray, and the unidentified subspace noise that turned out to be hypnotic and evil and Jim would not at all be surprised to find out that tapes had been made and were circulating through the ship.  
  
And contrary to what everyone (except Bones) believes, if he came across those tapes he would not make good use of them. He would smash them. Into tiny pieces. And then stomp on those pieces a little bit. And then make Spock come in and shoot them with something, because Spock tends to listen to him about shooting things.  
  
“You’re thinking about Spock again,” Bones points out (unnecessarily). He swirls a finger in Jim’s direction. “You’re doing that thing. With your face.”  
  
Jim laughs lightly, and snatches the glass out of Bones’s fingers. He proceeds to hedge, “You’re drunk.”  
  
“My problems are solved with a good night’s sleep and a detox hypo,” Bones informs him primly, and steals the glass back because he’s sneaky like that. “Your problems? They require psychiatric help.”  
  
“And you say I have nothing to complain about,” Jim scoffs. He gives up on the whiskey because it’s no use withholding things from someone who is determined to have them. Jim’s resolve is stretched thin enough. Plus he’s been on a campaign these past four years to make Bones stop drinking himself to death. His strategy is more the gradual wearing down of Bones’s patience through sheer annoyance, though, until the man gives up on alcoholism just to regain a sense of peace.  
  
(Bones totally sets down his glass without drinking it. _Ha_ , thinks Jim, _I am one badass genius_.)  
  
“You _don’t_ have anything to complain about.” Bones throws down another card with an irritated snort. He’s reached the point where he knows he won’t win, so now he’s engaging in violence against scraps of paper. Jim understands and sympathizes with this point. He continues onward to victory.  
  
“All you need to do,” Bones tells Jim, “Is stop taking Spock with you on away missions.” At Jim’s sour expression, he adds vaguely, “And stuff.” Because it seems like the majority of these incidents occur on the ship. Where there is a deceptive sense of security and a lot of readily available beds.  
  
Jim’s life hates him so much.  
  
“I kind of need him,” Jim says regretfully. He plays his last card. Bones glowers at him.  
  
“In a professional sense, or in the starry-eyed teenage girl oh Mr. Darcy! Kind of sense?”  
  
Jim just sighs at his empty hands. He can feel Bones roll his eyes. No really; it’s like a physical sensation of being deemed steadily more ridiculous.  
  
Bones pats him on the shoulder. “If it helps,” he says with the brusqueness characteristic of his talking about feelings not directly insulting to someone else, “You’re being really professional about this whole thing. No one can say any differently.”  
  
Jim sighs again, because what else can he do? The universe is out to get him. “Thanks,” he mutters.  
  
“Even if you’re completely not subtle about it.” Bones settles back into his chair, gathering the cards into something like a stack.  
  
“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Jim tells him, and props his feet up on the table while Bones deals, ignoring the black look this earns him. “I’m so subtle. I make angels weep with how subtle I am.”

\----

OK, so Jim isn’t subtle.  
  
It’s not his fault, and he feels subtler than most everyone else on this ship. It feels like not a day goes by without Sulu shooting Chekov one of these looks that makes Jim feel uncomfortably like that one fifth grade teacher forever snapping at the students to pay attention and face front, or Scotty stumbling happily after some beautiful, smirking woman, or Uhura pulling one of her Spock Is Mine, Bitches routines that leave Jim frowning at his shoes and trying not to feel personally attacked just because Spock likes someone else.  
  
So maybe he’s not exactly subtle, but he’s better than most of his cheerfully oblivious crew, and he figures that since the general consensus is that Jim Kirk does not even know what subtlety is, his meager attempts will be his saving grace and confuse everyone until they assume this is just Jim’s very awkward attempt at friendship with someone who treats him like a contaminant that he peeled off of his shoe.  
  
Jim is getting better about the smiling thing, though. It now requires slightly more than a nod from Spock to make him grin like school is letting out early (next on his list is to stop sitting up straight every time he achieves eye contact because there’s unsubtle and then there’s acting like you’ve been shot every few minutes until your yeoman starts asking if you’re feeling okay).  
  
At the very least—and Jim isn’t sure whether he should be thanking his lucky stars for this one or using it as further evidence as to the universe being out to get him—Spock gives the impression of being deeply confused about other people’s emotions and doesn’t seem to have a clue about why Jim has acts like a hyperactive puppy around him.  
  
Jim is stealing everything Spock wants to get his hands on? That’s okay, it’s just illogical human stuff. Every time Jim goes on an away mission with Spock he starts running around like his adrenaline receptors are misfiring? Must be illogical human stuff! Jim basks in the light of Spock’s approval like it is the very reason he breathes and exists and continues onward with a sense of hope and righteousness? Yeah, what else could that be other than illogical human stuff?  
  
Most days Jim struggles with the sense that Spock manages to be both the most intelligent being he’s ever met and simultaneously the _densest_ creature to ever grace a starship bridge. Spock still seems to think that Jim’s invitations to play chess are some sort of cleverly disguised ploy to… Well, honestly Jim doesn’t know what Spock thinks they are. He just looks panicked every time Jim asks.  
  
And seriously, it’s just chess. _Subtle_ chess. It’s not like Jim starts pretending the environment controls are on the fritz and taking off his shirt. It’s chess. It’s basically one step above a cold shower and Spock acts like Jim is planning on making off with Spock’s ears or something.  
  
On that note, Jim doesn’t really get what Spock thinks of him at all. Presumably, there’s some sort of acceptance of Jim’s captaincy, since Spock hasn’t attempted mutiny for the past year and seems pretty content to stay at the science station and subordinately question all of Jim’s decisions. And Jim hopes there’s some kind of affection between them (and don’t think he didn’t notice the way Spock phrased it—“because _you_ are my friend”—yes, he’s probably nitpicking, but he’s fully aware that one person can be friendly with another who totally hates their sorry ass). Besides, the rest of the crew is under the impression that Jim is desperately trying to make Spock like him for less insane reasons than wanting to sleep with him and it would pretty much suck if Spock was secretly laughing at him because even friendship is out of the question. So: affection, hopefully.  
  
But does Spock respect Jim? Think he’s funny? Want to throw him out the nearest airlock? These are questions that Jim needs to know with the same concern he pays to things like _air_ and _water_ and _ongoing survival_.  
  
It wasn’t so bad back when Spock was just a jumble of things Jim liked too much—stuff like ‘do not start giggling at his haircut’ and ‘damn, he looks sexy in the captain’s chair’ and ‘he gives me so much shit; I want to break his nose’—or afterwards, when Jim’s appreciation had time to ferment into a ridiculous crush involving reasons such as ‘we kind of saved the world together, and he has pretty eyes’ and ‘he gives me so much shit that I want to laugh at myself because his quietly Vulcan humor is awesome and worth noticing’ and ‘there’s just something wrong about trusting someone this much.’  
  
The death knell was when Jim heard all those stories about Spock going ballistic on Khan after Jim had. Y’know. Not been alive.  
  
Anyway.  
  
Afterwards, in the hospital there was this horribly dizzy moment where Jim’s insides turned to soup and his heart couldn’t decide whether to sink or make a break for the ceiling and he’d been forced to hide the goofy _Aww, he did that for me?_ smile in his pillow or risk being so incredibly unsubtle no one would miss it. Jim was very familiar with how stupid people looked when they fell in love. It had been really, really fun to laugh about in Academy, as he slept his way through most of his grade level.  
  
It was kind of incredibly less funny now, when Jim had to swallow half of his facial expressions for fear of them delving a little too deep into personal territory.  
  
And he still has _no idea_ what Spock thinks of him, aside from the fact that Spock seems to believe chess games are a threat to his life (Seriously. Jim doesn’t get it. Spock visibly _enjoys_ kicking Jim’s ass, which is half the reason Jim suggests the games. Happy Spock makes Jim’s insides go all gooey, which can be nice after a harrowing duel to the death on a random alien planet).  
  
But this isn’t even about Spock, or at least not specifically. This is about Jim being cursed.  
  
The events of the past two weeks followed a basic pattern.  
  
“Well,” says Jim, intrepid and much dignified starship captain. “This seems like a good place to continue our exploration of the far reaches of space for the good of science and Federation political stuff that no one really gives a shit about because it makes no sense.”  
  
“I concur,” agrees Spock, proving definitively that whatever follows is not Jim’s fault (even if Spock does always argue at first; Spock argues with Jim over what kind of cheese is on Jim’s sandwich at lunch. It’s like breathing for him).  
  
“Let us investigate,” the captain boldly suggests.  
  
Investigations happen.  
  
And then suddenly all the people around our beloved captain start ripping off their clothes and flinging themselves at each other, inevitably to the detriment of their survival (the sex pollen, for instance, had made people’s heart rates start skyrocketing into cardiac arrest territories; the weird orgy ray had been basically harmless, but had been shot at them right when they needed to be performing evasive maneuvers against an armada of hostile alien spaceships). Jim, in the thick of it, is as much affected as anyone and all seems lost but for the _Enterprise_ ’s one secret weapon.  
  
Spock is present! And totally unaffected by whatever it is making everyone else act like they’re on a diverse array of drugs.  
  
Or mostly unaffected. Honestly, Spock seemed pretty screwed up by the orgy ray too, but he expressed this by lurching into walls and muttering frantically under his breath instead of throwing his clothes at the ceiling and tackling people to the floor.  
  
Thus Captain Kirk locks onto Spock like a Klingon battle cruiser in Federation space and from there it’s an epic battle between Jim’s seduction and Spock’s attempt to get through to any functional part of Jim’s brain. Every part of Jim will be screaming at Jim to trip Spock to the floor, grope him in inappropriate places, and get his tongue down Spock’s throat because _yes Jim, that will certainly make Spock unable to resist your masculine wiles_. And then there’s Spock, shaking Jim by the shoulders and asking if he is coherent at a moment where Jim’s brain is hard pressed to make sense of monosyllables like ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ let alone _coherent_.  
  
And the really sad thing is that Spock wins each time.  
  
Jim isn’t sure if this is because his life is screwed up enough that he doesn’t register sentient life in the room as long as Spock’s around—and when he sees that Spock is so very far from interested it more or less stifles his libido—or if Jim is genuinely that terrified of Spock finding out the truth and therefore has developed a way to circumvent his sex drive.  
  
Either way, Jim will come back into himself long enough to save shit with Spock, drag the crew to sick bay, and Spock does that thing where he congratulates Jim on his surprising restraint and Jim tries to laugh without whimpering because words are _hard_ , and then Spock goes away and so too does Jim’s sanity.  
  
Proceed to waking up in sick bay, hunting down Bones, and initiating some much-needed time in which no one expects him to make decisions more profound than which alcohol, which card game, and how much do I even want to dodge those hypos anyway.  
  
The worst part is probably that after each shitstorm, everyone—seriously, EVERYONE—all do the smirking wink-wink nudge-nudge thing with Jim later, like he’s some kind of sex god because their ship seems determined to run into every sexual anomaly the universe has to offer. It’s all Jim can do not to laugh himself into hysterics or punch anyone because _if only they knew_.  
  
He’s gotten laid twice since he became a captain, and the first time ended with someone trying to shoot him.  
  
See? The universe clearly hates him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmugh. Attempted editing. Too tired to know if I did it right. Will be conscious again later this week.
> 
> Anyway, here's chapter two. Actual plot will begin shortly.
> 
> I introduce way too much, huh...?
> 
> Warnings for foul language and very awkward sex talk. Also, gratuitous song references (I couldn't resist. In no way take that as Uhura-bashing).  
> \----

But let’s not digress into narrative territory. This is, after all, James Kirk, and he’s not really about discussing shit so much as he is about doing it _now_. And then complaining heavily later, while drunk.  
  
“Captain.”  
  
Ah, and here’s Spock. He’s beautiful in this world’s light, which brings the green out in his skin and sends uncomfortably tingly feelings to places in Jim that do not need to be having tingly feelings. Jim turns to him automatically, and tries to look like he hadn’t just been utterly zoned out staring at the horizon of Kepsil-VI. It’s all… cloudy. And one of them looks like a dragon.  
  
…Shut up. There is no law against this.  
  
“Spock,” Jim greets. Spock’s eyebrow goes up. Jim’s eyebrows go up as well because _huh, weird_. Usually he has to try slightly to sound like a sexual predator. He holds his hands up because this sort of defense works with Bones and Spock is almost his friend by now so it should do okay.  
  
He pinpoints the moment where Spock dismisses it as illogical human stuff. It’s at about 6 seconds, which is longer than usual. Inwardly, he gives a cheer.  
  
“We are getting unusual readings from the planet’s radiation levels,” Spock informs him. He brandishes a tricorder, and Jim gets just a long enough look to verify the readings for himself before Spock snatches it away. Jim scowls a little bit and Spock pretends not to notice.  
  
Another fun little factoid about Spock is that he’s cottoned onto the fact that Jim is, well, _decently intelligent_ and now seems determined to test Jim’s brain in a series of bizarre, annoying little ways. Jim isn’t sure if this is another of Spock’s passive-aggressive protests against an inexperienced human being in command or if Spock is trying to gauge Jim’s intelligence for himself. What he is sure of is that it’s like living with a kid who’s just started school and feels the need to come home and quiz his parents all the time in a bid for supremacy and more cookies at dinner.  
  
“And what is your brilliant suggestion, Mr. Spock?” Jim says, because pathetically in love he may be, but nobody’s bitch is Jim Kirk. “I mean, I assume that you have one. Since you are Vulcan. And I am human. And this world operates by accepted laws of reality.”  
  
Spock’s severe look says that sarcasm is unbecoming of him. Jim smiles back winningly and tries not to think about how all of a sudden he really wants to give Spock a hug. He’s pretty sure that this impulse is not coming from a platonic part of his brain.  
  
“It is my recommendation that we beam all non-essential personnel back to the ship and while further investigation takes place,” says Spock.  
  
“Sounds good,” Jim agrees. He’s got five security officers and three scientists—there have been reports of disappeared space crafts at these coordinates. Obviously bullshit now, looking at Kepsil-VI. It’s a harmless place with lots of bunny-looking things and an assortment of microorganisms that have made Spock’s science geeks generally abscond with their tricorders in rapturous delight. It’s kind of heartwarming, actually.  
  
“Hey, can I consider myself essential personnel?” Jim asks, relishing the emoting Spock does with his eyebrows. _I am so dismayed!_ They loudly proclaim while the rest of Spock’s face maintains utter serenity.  
  
Jim holds up a hand before Spock can start citing regulation. “Before you answer, please consider the expertise I may offer in radioactivity countermeasures.”  
  
Spock’s expression goes carefully blank. Jim rolls his eyes. “Look, I’ve repaired a hoverbike on a planetoid while the sun was going supernova. If your tricorders bust from radiation problems, I can whip up a stop-gap measure to last you a few hours.”  
  
Yes. Jim had done this once. It had been for a dare, he’d won fifty credits, and he’d done it remotely from a library computer terminal after he’d had far too many Saurian ales.  
  
Two days later he’d learned that the hoverbike in question had been the property of a party of incensed Tellarite merchants less than pleased to find that a Terran tourist had hacked their company database over a fifty credit pissing contest, and in the process wrecked the past week’s scientific findings.  
  
(Jim felt that Spock didn’t need to know about that last part.)  
  
“An impressive achievement,” Spock concedes tonelessly. “However, should the tricorders malfunction, it would be logical to merely contact Engineering and— _Ensign Trobago, you will cease removing your shirt_.”  
  
Just for the record, this is not Spock’s characteristic means of ending a Go Play on the Ship, Jim lecture.  
  
Jim frowns mildly and looks over his shoulder. And indeed, there is Ensign Trobago. And there is a pile of Ensign Trobago’s clothing.  
  
“Huh,” says Jim. He raises his eyebrows at the Ensign. “Don’t you feel a little cold there, Trobago?” Ok, it’s not exactly nippy, but people wear shirts for a reason.  
  
Trobago, who is now down to his pants and one boot—having totally ignored Spock’s demand about his shirt, which impresses Jim because he’s pretty sure the last person who just ignored Spock ended up a sticky smear on the pavement—smiles up at Jim in a way that Jim is pretty damn sure Trobago… would not usually be doing. “No Captain, I’m fine!” He leers as Jim blinks. “In fact, aren’t you just _burning up_ over there?”  
  
Come to think of it, Jim is sweating a lot? Spock routes that line of thought by barking, “It is 29 degrees Celsius, perfectly optimal for Terran life, and you will return yourself to suitable attire immediately.”  
  
“It is kind of hot,” Jim says, meaning the climate. Trobago smirks and does a sort of… gyration. Jim isn’t sure whether to laugh or cringe. “Check the humidity, would you, Spock?”  
  
Trobago is still doing his dance. Horror has more or less won out at this point, especially when Spock says, “The humidity index is within acceptable parameters. Trobago, this is your last warning. _Desist in your actions_.”  
  
Boy does Spock sound pissed. Must be a Vulcan thing. Trobago, miraculously, does not cower with reasonable terror. He actually winks at Jim, who is in the process of feeling both admiring and still mildly horrified about the sheer balls this man possesses. Jim fears that Spock is about to assault somebody for getting undressed.  
  
Jim lays a hand on Spock’s arm. “Hey, it’s just a shirt. Keep it together.”  
  
Spock actually hisses at him, “There is no fault in my behavior, _Captain_.”  
  
Um-kaaay.  
  
Jim shifts back. Distance? Sounding like a good thing right now.  
  
“Spock?” Jim says gently. Spock doesn’t answer. Jim feels the need to take another step back.  
  
Sweat is pouring off of Jim at this point and oh sweet Jesus, the idea of taking off just one layer of clothing is appealing beyond measure. If he takes off one sock, will Spock kill him? He’d rather it not come to that, but these socks are going to murder him first at this rate.  
  
Below, Trobago’s pants are missing and Jim averts his eyes. Oh great—the heat has affected the rest of the away team too. He _never_ needed to see that much of Officer Norik's detachable spinal column.  
  
But Jim truly sympathizes. Spock’s tricorder must be broken. Spock is still glaring at Jim (he’d probably feel better if he stripped a little) and Lieutenant Marietto and Ensign Whear are—  
  
OK, that thing they’re doing with their hips? Not the heat. Nothing to do with the heat at all.  
  
And Jim is forced to groan out a line that no starship captain should have to utter, but that he’s forced to with rather depressing regularity.  
  
“I think we all need to put our clothing back on,” he says. Spock blinks at this admission and his eyes dart. His face goes slightly slack. Jim grabs his arm before Spock can go kill people for—yeah, that over there has definitely progressed to sex. Jim averts his eyes. His skin has started to feel _scorched_. “That’s an order, people!”  
  
There is the resounding noise of silence, and a little wet kissing. Jim wants to kick something.  
  
“They do not appear responsive, Captain.” Spock grinds this out, still looking immensely pissed off. Figures that whatever is up with this planet would make Jim deal with horniness that he can’t engage in and Vulcan tempers that he either has to deal with by phaser or death. Neither option is looking good. “We should beam aboard and undergo medical evaluation.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Jim says. He’s overheating. There is moaning everywhere now, as his crew starts to get into it, and one of them—Jim is betting Whear—is getting… shall we say, vocal?  
  
“Fuck me, baby, do it, do it!”  
  
This is a really great soundtrack to Spock’s face. Jim basically wants to cry.  
  
Spock’s expression darkens. “Captain. You must _contact the ship_.”  
  
“Y-yeah,” Jim agrees. He’s not hot anymore. When exactly this planet got so cold he doesn’t know, but the only place he isn’t currently getting frostbite on is where Spock’s Vulcan body heat is seeping through his clothing.  
  
Spock looks pointedly at Jim’s communicator. With great effort, Jim stops rubbing on the warmth of Spock’s sleeve and pulls it out. He peers at it.  
  
“Ohh, that’s perfect, baby!”  
  
 _Shut up_ , Jim thinks. Aloud, “Does this look right to you, Spock?”  
  
Spock inches closer to look. There’s a pause.  
  
“You’re going to make me come!”  
  
“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Jim bellows at them. He’s viscerally aware that his hand has slid down Spock’s arm and wrapped around his wrist. The bare skin under Jim’s fingers is like the burn of really good alcohol and warmth curls through his bloodstream.  
  
Spock is more productive. “Your communicator appears nonfunctional,” he says. He’s whipped out his own communicator and is perusing its readings. He also hasn’t stepped away and Jim desperately wishes he would because—  
  
“You fuck so good!”  
  
This is not Jim’s best moment, but he may throw his nonfunctional communicator at the source of the noise. It goes unnoticed.  
  
“I believe my communicator can be repaired into a short-term pulse beacon,” Spock says, and Jim’s brain—which has apparently turned into hormonal soup—struggles to put that together. He squints at the communicator and Spock’s fingers. He ends up focusing on one more than the other.  
  
“Right.” Jim swallows.  
  
“Captain, I require both hands.”  
  
“I want more of your dick!”  
  
Jim stares at his hand, willing it to move. His fingers stay exactly where they are, comfy against Spock’s skin. “I, uh,” he blinks at it. “I don’t… think I can let go.”  
  
Spock’s expression, Jim thinks, is that of someone who has just seen an impending traffic accident and would really like to get out of the way. “Captain,” he says—and rather nicely, since he’s been growling everything since Trobago started strip teasing his captain—“Unhand me.”  
  
“I’m _trying_ ,” Jim assures him, and lets out an inadvertent squeak of terror when instead of departing, his fingers actually progress further up under Spock’s sleeve. He looks up wide-eyed and meets Spock’s gaze. “So, uh, about that radiation you picked up…”  
  
“Mmm, any harder and you’ll break me—“  
  
Spock’s eye twitches just a little bit. It’s small, but it’s there. “If you are incapable of removing yourself, please to not obstruct my movements.”  
  
And then he makes a really good effort of turning his back to Jim and hunching over the communicator. Which fails because Jim is holding his wrist like it’s the last ice cream cone in the desert.  
  
So Jim winds up standing awkwardly over Spock while he squats and makes angry Vulcan faces at the communicator and Jim tries really, really hard not to think about what else this position would be good for. And all the while, Whear is caterwauling about how good of a fuck Marietto is, and Jim is considering having them both court-martialed for stomping all over their captain’s sanity because if there’s got to be a cosmic sexual shenanigans, there’s no reason why they couldn’t be reasonably noiseless shenanigans.  
  
Jim thinks damn near saintly thoughts and manages to keep his brain functional enough to suggest a few corrections to Spock’s repair job. Spock is actually listening, in spite of the fact that Jim has regressed to saying things like “the pointy wire and the thingy that looks like a coat hanger.” It makes Jim’s heart go warm and fuzzy, and he ends up squatting in the dirt with Spock because _Spock_ and _close_ go together.  
  
He’s sort of petting Spock’s forearm (Jim’s other hand is planted firmly behind his back) by the time they have a functional beacon. Spock sets the beacon off and then looks pointedly at his rolled-up sleeve and Jim’s frolicking hand.  
  
“I swear I’m not doing this on purpose,” Jim whines. He’s kind of panting at this point, and shivery all over and his body keeps switching from cold to hot so fast that he’s feeling pretty sick. You’d think that would put a dent in the massive desire to plaster himself to Spock and do wicked things to him, but Jim’s life sucks too much for that.  
  
“I have gathered,” Spock says, and does that nose-breathing thing he does when things are pissing him off a lot and he’s trying not to maroon people.  
  
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Shrieks Whear, and Jim thinks,  
  
 _Fucking finally_.  
  
And then: “Round two already, baby? I’m game. I want you to—“  
  
At this point Jim actually does remove his hand from Spock, so he has Whear to thank.  
  
Apparently, the need to cover his ears just became too pressing.  
  
Spock raises an eyebrow (and Jim totally sees him slowly fold his hands behind his back and out of Jim’s lust-addled reach). “Oh, shut up,” Jim tells Spock, and does not even feel slightly bad about it. Clearly, protocol has been shot to hell already, and Spock can stop silently mocking Jim and just enjoy his not-debauched state.  
  
They beam up in—and Jim knows because he counts it down to the second—four minutes and fifteen seconds.  
  
He kind of wishes that they’d been able to send a message to the effect of ‘shield thine eyes.’ But it’s basically okay, because the attending physician is Bones and Jim gets to do the Smirk of Commiseration. He sees Spock doing the approximate Vulcan face as Bones lets out an entirely girly scream and ducks behind the transporter console.  
  
Scotty, for the record, looks like he’s taking mental pictures. Jim wishes he had a backup communicator to throw at him.  
  
“Decontamination requested,” he shouts over the moaning and writhing taking place on the floor around them.  
  
Three hours later and he’s been cleared for duty (after Bones growls at Jim for an hour about how evil space is and how that planet’s sun apparently had some kind of nigh-undetectable radiation that would have killed them all in thirty minutes after sending hypothalamic impulses into overdrive. Good to know). He meets Spock on the bridge and is relieved to feel nothing more than the usual unprofessional desires towards his First.  
  
Jim very carefully does not burst into a grin of delight as soon as he spies one pointy ear, dodges Uhura’s expression that promises to thoroughly fuck him up if he touches her man again (she’s just crazy possessive), and leans against Spock’s science console.  
  
Spock raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Hi,” says Jim, in what he has calculated to be the most maddening way possible.  
  
“Do you wish to see the science report, Captain?” Spock says with infinite professionalism—and just the tiniest blip of annoyance reserved entirely for Jim Kirk.  
  
Win.  
  
“That would be good,” Jim agrees, and allows Spock to shoo him off of what are apparently a very important set of buttons and dials. Spock makes a show of how complicated his console is—he totally does this just to make Jim feel bad about only having a chair and a comm link (but it doesn’t work because Jim would marry that chair if it were legal)—and Jim watches him move, feeling a sort of possessive happiness because they’re on the _Enterprise_ , no one is dead, and Spock is being very Spock-like.  
  
“So, everything checked out with you?” Jim asks, projecting so much nonchalance. No one even looks at him. He thinks he sees Spock’s eyebrow jump for a second, but that’s nothing consequential. “With Bones, I mean? No lasting effects of the radiation?”  
  
“None, Captain.” Spock has pulled up the mission report and Jim leans over to get a better look. It’s about like he expected—there’s something fucked up about Kepsil-VI’s sun, and it puts out some kind of radiation that stimulates parts of the brain associated with social mate-seeking behaviors—in addition to melting fine nervous tissue. Sweet.  
  
And, clearly (although Spock’s report leaves this out) it affects parts of the brain associated with screwing loudly and obnoxiously in front of your superiors.  
  
“Looks good,” Jim says and retreats. He only hesitates for a second before he determines that it will not be weird, at which point he thumps Spock on the shoulder. “Glad you’re good to go, Spock.”  
  
Spock totally ignores this, but Jim can picture Spock giving him a nod and saying something to the effect of, _And I as well am gratified by your continued proximal irritation to myself_. So it kind of works and Jim goes to his chair smiling and determinedly not looking at Uhura in case he’s in trouble with her because his hand got happy with Spock’s arm before. “Full speed ahead,” he says to Sulu. He sends Bones a quick message promising alcohol therapy this afternoon in Jim’s quarters. Bones responds with a page of creative swear words.  
  
So that’s a yes.  
  
Jim refuses to be defeated by cosmic nookie.  
  
(He also does not court-martial Ensign Whear, but it’s a near thing.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just call this episode two. To my knowledge, there are about four more until the end of this extraordinary adventure I'm taking you on.
> 
> Yeah, sorry if this one isn't as funny as the last one. it was supposed to be more dramatic--also, advice? I'd love to have some. Action and suspense are my cuppa, but I'm pretty crap at writing them. I'm decent enough at humor that I'm no longer begging for info on its behalf, but yeah. Help your author?
> 
> Also, Jim is pretty much the most uncommitted would-be homewrecker ever.
> 
> \----

And for one week there’s nothing but hostile aliens that need shooting, Prime Directives that need not-violating, and a lot of unexplored space to be scanned. It’s glorious. Oh, and Jim gets the flu.  
  
Jim is gradually able to look up (over the wall of tissues in his lap) and smile at his crewmembers without being assaulted by a step-by-step tutorial in how to use nudity to spark unprofessional thoughts in your captain. Spock stops giving Trobago looks that make the man flatten himself against walls. Even Uhura has relaxed, and has stopped looking like she’s planning on gutting Jim whenever he makes eye contact. They have this one civil conversation about spiders or something, in which Jim manages not to mention Spock once (or sneeze on her), and after that she’s almost _nice_ to him.  
  
So life is good.  
  
And then they get sent to Poros.  
  
Poros is an aquatic world. The _Enterprise_ has breathing apparatuses (which are totally weird because they get attached to your chest, not your mouth—Jim had to take Not Breathing classes to avoid sucking in lungfuls of water and drowning) and it’s not one of the diplomatic missions where Jim is supposed to pretend like he hasn’t got three different plans for how to take out every person in the room. The Porosi think the Federation is awesome, they don’t even know what a Klingon _is_ , and the _Enterprise_ is going to open up all kinds of trade by this one show of good faith so yay, everybody is happy with this.  
  
It’s all good. Except Poros is an aquatic world, and Jim has the demon space flu from hell that doesn’t respond to hypos and is trying to drain out all the fluid in his body through his nose.  
  
Aquatic world. _Aquatic_.

\----

What is the best way to make Spock hate you in under ten seconds? Oh yeah. Ask him to go diving.  
  
“Please?” Jim wheedles to his First Officer, who is giving him the most deeply appalled look he’s earned yet. Maybe it’s the wheedle. It’s not a very good wheedle. Jim’s voice sounds like it’s being run over with a lawn mower this very second. It doesn’t make you think _Aw, poor captain_. It makes you think _Is death contagious?_  
  
“Captain,” Spock begins carefully, eyes rather wide. “I applied for a posting in the science labs in advance.” When Jim continues to ooze unhappily in front of Spock’s quarters, he adds, “You approved this request yourself, if you recall.”  
  
“I _know_ that,” Jim huffs, and then regrets it. Indignation and congestion do not for happy bedfellows make.  
  
So when he’s done hacking into his tissue, he straightens back up to say much more neutrally, “I am aware, Mr. Spock. That’s why I’m coming to ask this as a personal favor.”  
  
Spock continues to look like something just grabbed his ass. It would be kind of funny, except Jim is too sick to entertain inappropriate thoughts (even if Spock’s shoulder does look warm and kind of comfy).  
  
“I have not prepped to handle Poros atmospheric conditions,” Spock says.  
  
There’s quite a bit between the lines there, and Jim stares hopelessly up at him. “It’s just that I’m not exactly in captainly shape,” he says, and yes, he is truly sick if he can’t even derive satisfaction from Spock twitching at his make-believe word. “And sending someone lower down on the chain of command might be construed as an insult.”  
  
Spock just looks at him.  
  
Jim crosses his arms. “I’m disgusting and going to pollute miles of Porosi water space with my snot.”  
  
“I believe that Doctor McCoy engineered a solution for this eventuality,” Spock replies gracefully.  
  
Jim scowls immediately. Yes, _Doctor McCoy_ did. The bastard.  
  
“It looks like a fishbowl,” he tells Spock. “A big, stupid fishbowl that I have to wear over my head. And it stores and recycles my _snot_.” Spock continues to be unmoved, and Jim degenerates into pointless complaining. “You know what this is about? This is because I never let him win at cards.”  
  
“I assure you, it would be more conducive to your aims to speak with Doctor McCoy on this matter,” says Spock. He’s fighting an uphill battle. If he won’t rescue Jim from hours of swimming around looking like a retarded pre-warp astronaut, Spock is totally going to listen to Jim be obnoxious.  
  
“Why don’t you want to go to Poros?” Jim asks, after blowing his nose for about seven minutes straight.  
  
“Because I am Vulcan,” Spock says patiently.  
  
Jim considers this. Vulcan: hot, arid, rained once every few decades. Poros: totally submerged, chilly enough that his crew has to wear thermal wetsuits (which may have made Jim laugh himself into a hysterical coughing fit at first sight), does not understand what “dry” means.  
  
“Oh,” he says, and scratches the back of his head. “I see... Sorry. I should have thought of that.” Spock looks surprised at this; as though he’d expected Jim to demand Spock go frolic with the fishes anyway. Jim fidgets under the scrutiny and clears his throat a lot. Fuck. Did he just give something away?  
  
“So can Vulcans even swim?” He asks loudly, flushing, and determined to blame this all on his fever. “You could be the first Vulcan to swim, Spock. Think about it.”  
  
“Goodnight, Jim,” Spock says and very gently closes the door in Jim’s face.  
  
“Bye,” Jim says morosely to the door.  
  
Fuck. Now Jim has to go be a retarded astronaut, and he forgot to ask about chess on Tuesday. Fuck, fuck, fuck.  
  
He blows his nose for about twelve minutes straight, sighs, and shuffles down the hall to see if Bones’s shoulder looks at all warm and comfy.

\----

Bones’s shoulder wasn’t warm or comfy, and now Jim is getting to be a retarded astronaut. Because this is his life.  
  
Although before Jim beamed down in all his thermal fishbowl glory, Bones did shoot him up with something that made it feel like the flu had gone away—and either it is the lack of death in his airways or a side-effect of narcotic involvement, but right now Jim feels higher than the fucking moon. It doesn’t help that he’s in an underwater palace with a bunch of aliens that look like funky mermaids with three tails.  
  
Uhura is present too, looking radiant in spite of her wetsuit. She was a natural choice for this mission; Jim wanted an assortment of crewmembers with different interests and occupations. He’s trying to present the Federation in a good light in spite of the fact that he’s sick and at least mildly stoned. And Uhura is smart, tactful, and really, really good at making sure that everyone is doing what they’re supposed to. She already has a host of Porosi following her around with expressions of intense hero worship.  
  
Maurengi is somewhere on a balcony-thing, arguing amicably about whether the vestigial limbs on his back are wings or fins—and ah, there’s Bones, looking perfectly traumatized by the potential drowning in this room as an amused Porosi directs him to some refreshments. Chekov and Sulu, who both reacted to this world like five year olds to a candy store, are entertaining a group of five with some kind of story. Jim desperately hopes this is not a story that ends in a lot of exploding and blood because he’d prefer that not be the impression they leave Poros with. Thrinet is showing off her telepathy and the Porosi have started bowing to her—Jim casts a prayer up to his wonderful ship, _please do not let this become a diplomatic incident._  
  
He gets distracted by a bubble. It’s round. How _fascinating_.  
  
Hee. Jim just thought the word ‘fascinating.’  
  
At this point Lady Oxiva returns. She finds Jim gaping up at the amazing bubble (so, so high) and they exchange the traditional Porosi greeting. Or, okay, Lady Oxiva offers Jim the traditional greeting and Jim does this very confused dance with his legs like he has three fins to wave gracefully. He can tell that she’s getting a kick out of watching him mangle this. They’ve exchanged greetings eight times in about one hour and she is fooling _no one_.  
  
“Captain Kirk,” she says happily, once Jim is done trying to kick himself in the eye. “As per your request, I have brought you a _shungen_.” She holds out a pearly sphere. As Jim fumbles for it, he discovers that it feels like a cross between a beach ball and a sponge.  
  
There’s all kinds of music at this Porosi shindig, and according to Lady Oxiva, it comes from the _shungen_ spheres people are carrying around. And honestly? Jim asked to see one because he was pretty sure Lady Oxiva is screwing with him.  
  
Another positive: Jim’d shown up expecting to nod his way through a lot of pompous talk, but instead he got the lovely Lady Oxiva—who is either the Porosi queen or a president with a very funny hat; Jim has been calling her Lady because his mother said that should always be your default—and she’s got a wicked sense of humor. There’s cultural disparity, of course, but they’ve both been doggedly cracking jokes all evening and when they find common ground it’s hilarious and awesome.  
  
Of course that also leads to moments like these, where she tells Jim with an evil twinkle in her eye that the globe decorations are apparently musical instruments and he has no clue whether or not he’s trying to play a light bulb right now.  
  
Jim turns it over in his hands. “It’s not doing anything,” he observes warily.  
  
“Play it with your mind,” Lady Oxiva tells him, swimming excitedly around Jim’s fishbowl helmet (Bones can call it whatever he wants; it’s a fishbowl). “Think. It will move your hands.”  
  
Jim prods at the _shungen_ a little bit more. He’s pretty sure he’s thinking. And he refuses to make faces of intense concentration at this ball in case this really is a glorified lamppost. He’s already in a fishbowl and thermal underwear. At this point, he should be making vested efforts to preserve his dignity.  
  
“Think of something musical,” the lady giggles at him, flapping a fin at his head. “Something beautiful. Music that-should-be.”  
  
For a minute, Jim thinks of a bubble tottering higher and higher towards the Porosi ceiling, reflecting sparks of light—and there is a sound. He almost mistakes it for Lady Oxiva’s giggling—it’s a chirpy, playful kind of note—and then he thinks of what lies past that bubble. Jim feels himself smile and his hands are moving, but it’s not weird. It’s like messing with a stylus while you think about something else.  
  
He doesn’t exactly hear the music. Maybe it’s the drugs. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s really caught up in _her_.  
  
He thinks of running his hands along the paneling in her newly repaired corridors, of diving face-first into his bed and landing on a pile of research PADDs (ow, fuck), of sinking into the captain’s chair and the thrum in his bones, of getting his ass handed to him during fencing lessons with Sulu (literally, he went skidding across the rec room floor on his ass), of Scotty’s Engineering, of Sick Bay and poker, of the science station—  
  
Of Spock.  
  
 _Home_ , Jim thinks, heart squeezing. It’s not just stuff like _that_ argument on the bridge, or _that_ first chess game Jim won that made Spock look at him like they’d never met before, or _that_ time where he went to the science labs and worked his way through a bunch of problems for kicks and only realized this was Spock’s research when Spock was standing over him, telling him that his formula for one of them was needlessly complicated—then admitting that it was effective and sending Jim smirking all the way back to bridge. It’s not just _that_. The highlight reel is nifty, but yeah.  
  
It’s little things. At this point Jim thinks he’s maybe noticed every detail about Spock. The different positions he rests his hands in depending on who is speaking, how he bends forward slightly (at the waist, not the shoulders) when he’s found new data, the curve of his ear, the sound of his annoyance in his voice—the way he has a hundred subtle shades of that emotion when most people only have one. And Jim is still learning something every day because he can’t take his eyes off, can’t stop listening, can’t stop feeling like this is the First Contact all over again because it feels like his world started the day Spock stood up and tried to tell him that he was an idiot with politically correct phrasing.  
  
They barely do anything together and Jim barely knows him and it’s stupid and Spock has Uhura and it’s just a crush. Yep. Not even being high will make him delusional. Doesn’t matter.  
  
Jim is swallowing that goofy smile as he takes out all his thoughts about Spock and rearranges them like photographs in the water around him, all of it unwinding into music—and he’s vaguely aware that his eyes are still open and outside of Jim Kirk is High and Busily Mooning over His First, lots of people are stopping and staring so the music he’s coming up with probably seriously sucks.  
  
It then occurs to him—very belatedly—that Uhura is in this room and everything Jim just played probably sounded like SPOCK, SPOCK, SPOCK, HEY SPOCK, I WUV YOU in giant, girly, neon, thoroughly stoned letters.  
  
Jim about drops the _shungen_ on his foot in his abrupt haste to look around the room and duck away from potential phaser fire. When no one in his immediate vicinity gives him viciously homicidal looks, Jim relaxes.  
  
Also belatedly, he realizes that the Porosi have surrounded him and Lady Oxiva looks like she’s contemplating climbing into the fishbowl with him.  
  
“Um,” says Jim.  
  
Lady Oxiva’s facial scales are rapidly shifting colors—from silver to pink to a gold color that reminds Jim weirdly of this shirt that he’d spilled mustard on. Her eyes are enormous. “Captain Kirk,” she says. “That was an extraordinary piece of music.”  
  
Jim’s mouth opens. “Not my—what?”  
  
And then he gets mobbed by excited, musically inclined mermaids. Jim’s first impulse is that he’s committed some kind of unforgivable atrocity for symphonizing his unrequited gay love story for his First and needs to apologize a lot before shooting happens. When this abates (they mostly want to make him play something again, and since Jim’s only emotional undercurrent is a deep-seated fear that Uhura is about to find him, he pretty heavily declines), his next thought is that all the undulating tails are making him nauseous.  
  
And then, more sinisterly, _weren’t there more of you?_  
  
It is pretty unsettling—this place was packed before (“like sardines,” Bones had contributed, which necessitated Jim punching him in the ribs before he got too high for that) and it’s basically one giant amphitheater. There are a few porthole-looking exits, but Jim would like to think he’d have noticed a mass exodus for an escape hatches.  
  
Then again he was thinking about Spock. Spock makes him notoriously stupid (he does a quick double take in case of rampaging Uhura).  
  
And then it occurs to him: where is Uhura? Not just in the “I want to die old, fat, and retired, preferably in my sleep” fashion, but seriously… Where is she? She’s gorgeous and impossible to miss _and Jim just isn’t seeing her._  
  
The Porosi are still chattering at him and inspecting his _shungen_ like it’s some sort of holy object now that Jim thought all kinds of stoned thoughts at it, so Jim takes a break from diplomacy to scan the room more carefully. There are definitely less Porosi, but there’s Chekov, there’s Isiira, there’s Thrinet—no wait, that’s Sulu. Dude, why is he wearing a _scarf?_ —there’s Danner…  
  
Maurengi? Tobod? Uhura? At least fifteen others just aren’t in the room.  
  
 _Bones_ , Jim thinks, and his heart pounds so hard it feels like he’s about to knock his respirator off. At least half of his people are missing, and he doesn’t see Bones. He tries to swim his way out of the circle of Porosi and it devolves to uncoordinated floundering that involves his elbows way too much—  
  
When eighteen trained Starfleet officers just drop off the radar, some shit is going down. Bones, who has a list of phobias longer than Jim’s arm—Jim is sure it includes watery graves— _doesn’t_ go diving through random-ass portholes in the middle of a diplomatic event.  
  
Something has just gone very wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give me an E! Give me an M!
> 
> Give me a time skip, and what does that say? Emotional whiplash.
> 
> ...Sorry about that.
> 
> Anyway, early update! Hopefully this is a moment to be happy over and not a moment to contemplate why dumbass authors feel the need to post things early if they're going to suck so much. And if you are leaning towards the latter, I say: Give me a break. I had to get very close to writing a sexy scene. And I am so, SO much crap at writing those.  
> \----

But then Bones reappears. The asshole was just fishing under the buffet table for something and okay, Jim is going to kill him as soon as he gets over there. And he’s heading there now because, again, _eighteen Starfleet officers_. They have training for this. It begins with: Do Not Fucking Wander About. Unless you call in.  
  
No one has called in. Seriously, klaxons are blaring in Jim’s head because this is six diverse shades of wrong. He’s just too drugged up to understand what his gut is trying to tell him.  
  
“Captain Kirk?” Lady Oxiva outpaces him easily in the water. Her fins flare with distress. “You are displeased?”  
  
Holy fuck, is he ever displeased! Jim’s common sense snarls at him until he moves his hand away from the phaser in his belt (Jim actually has to listen to the little shit too; Spock isn’t around to be aggressively pragmatic).  
  
“We may have a situation,” he tells Lady Oxiva instead. She’s nice, she’s funny, and whether or not she’s conspired to make off with a bunch of his people for unauthorized purposes, she’s still the boss here and Jim has orders not to piss the boss off.  
  
So he tries to think of a diplomatic way to phrase, _So are you guys planning to kidnap and kill, maim, or render us mentally unsound?_  
  
He comes up with, “Um. Are there any interesting customs you’d like to share about your planet? Like the shungen, or…” He ponders, “you know. Something that _maybe_ involves people vanishing out of diplomatic functions without informing superior officers and potentially being in danger? Or something with, uh, dancing? Man, I love me some dancing!”  
  
There is a moment where he is maybe slightly concerned about his subtlety. His very intoxicated brain assures him that he nailed it, though. So it’s all good on that front.  
  
“You are concerned as to the whereabouts of your people?” Lady Oxiva asks. She’s probably just wildly perceptive. Jim is a subtle person. He’s so totally subtle.  
  
He comes within range of where his favorite CMO is doggedly raking the buffet table and ignoring everyone who tries to approach him. “Shut up, Bones,” he says. Just in case.  
  
“Whuf?” Bones demands through a mouthful of shrimp.  
  
Their host seems amused. “Greetings, honored guest.” She does the traditional fin thing. Bones, bless him, waves his fork at her a little bit.  
  
“You need not concern yourself, Captain Kirk,” Lady Oxiva tells Jim, perhaps sensing that Bones will not be parted from the food until he’s gotten significantly rounder. “Your people are safe. They have simply been shown to their chambers for resting. It is diplomacy.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Jim tells her. He’s smiling beneath his fishbowl, because they’re so up the creek this officially requires delicacy. Inside, he’s a gibbering mess screaming, _Where is my crew?!_ Outside, he’s the very nice, very agreeable captain because wherever his crew is, he’d prefer they not be shot.  
  
“Oh shit,” he hears Bones mutter.  
  
“I can’t help but think that maybe my crew—since they need rest and all—might be more comfortable on their ship,” Jim opines cheerfully. “In their rooms. Which have lots of oxygen.”  
  
Bones elbows him. Jim stops talking.  
  
“They will be provided for,” Lady Oxiva tells them brightly. “It is simply the good feelings. There is no cause for worry, Captain.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Jim says again, to the internal monologue of _ohshitohshitohshit._  
  
“Ah, it happens as we speak,” Lady Oxiva jovially informs them, apparently not noticing how Jim’s hand has migrated back to his phaser and Bones is…  
  
Inching closer to her with the fork.  
  
Really? Jim is the high one here. He kicks Bones in the shin and stares meaningfully until the fork falters sullenly down. And then he takes a look at what Lady Oxiva is observing with such fond attention.  
  
Jim is expecting giant sea beasts or tentacles or a Klingon in a fishbowl. You know, _something._ Preferably something that eats people and can be shot. Instead, he sees Sulu and Chekov.  
  
They’re screwing around, which is par for the course. Jim watches, unsure about what he’s supposed to be getting from this. Sulu knocks shoulders with his buddy, Chekov slaps his arm, chattering something with a huge grin on his face—and okay, if Lady Oxiva meant for it to be a surprise that his crewmembers are drunk, it’s definitely not. Chekov gravitates to alcohol like he has a homing pigeon somewhere under all that curly hair—  
  
Okay.  
  
Okay, that one’s new.  
  
“Bones,” Jim calls carefully. “Was there anything in that hypo that should make me hallucinate?”  
  
There is deep silence from beside him. Then, “That depends. Are you seeing the kid and the sword nut sucking face?”  
  
“Damn it,” says Jim.  
  
And they’re really going at it too. It’s not like Jim had any illusions where they were concerned—Chekov is a study in those hopelessly besotted looks (which Jim will off himself by phaser before he subjects Spock to) and Sulu will inform anyone who will listen that Chekov hangs the moon each night—but they’re both so horribly clueless that Jim figured that it wasn’t meant to be. No matter how many helpful comments he made on the bridge (or even that one time with the vodka and tricking Sulu into showing up half-naked), it only gets Jim scowled at and the yearning looks continue.  
  
They’re, uh, yearning no longer.  
  
As Jim gapes, Sulu puts a hand to Chekov’s cheek and deepens the kiss. They stumble, breaking apart to giggle and then Bones smacks Jim’s arm. “Stop looking,” Bones hisses in his ear.  
  
“What?” Jim hissed back. “They’re the ones doing this in a public place. And I never thought this could happen. This is like sighting a yeti!”  
  
Bones is deeply unimpressed. “Good _god_ , man, you need to get laid.”  
  
Lady Oxiva sighs, still watching the two young men (who are now necking). “The good feelings.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jim agrees. “Those are definitely some good feelings.” Bones punches him in the arm again and refuses to explain himself when Jim looks at him. Jim flicks a shrimp at his face.  
  
This feels like a mature and well-reasoned life decision when you are high.  
  
And then he sees that the reasonably innocent debauching of his navigator as per his helmsman has taken a less adorable turn and now the pair of them are slipping out one of those portholes without so much as a backward glance. When Jim moves to go after them, Lady Oxiva is suddenly in front of him.  
  
“No, not yet,” she tells Jim. And there we go, there is now an element of command to her voice and Jim is back in his element. Threat identified. He stills in the water, muscles tensing for the inevitable fight. “You are not yet ready for the good feelings.”  
  
“No offense,” Jim tells her, “But if the captain isn’t ready for it, neither is his crew. I’m asking you nicely: let me through.”  
  
This is generally when the teeth come out or people shoot at him a lot.  
  
A few bubbles drift upwards. Lady Oxiva frowns at him. It’s really anticlimactic. Jim deflates a little bit.  
  
“This is not the way diplomacy is done,” Lady Oxiva tells him. She’s pouting. Jim just stares as she says, “We wait for the good feelings to take effect. _Then_ there is the retiring to chambers and the securing of diplomatic ties.”  
  
She gives Jim a very patient look. Jim is frantically wracking his brain for anything in his less-than-helpful Federation mission outline about how diplomatic ties are secured on Poros, and whether it involves physical or mental harm.  
  
Yeah. He’s still coming up with nothing.  
  
He’s about to just see if he can charge through to the door, when Bones is at his side with a lot of very jabby elbows and a tricorder.  
  
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Bones drawls, and gone is the fork-waving hermit; here is Bones the socialite, the one that never fails to make Jim gape because he’s a lot more familiar with the guy who offers to throw up on him than the one who has more manners than Jim has excuses to get out of medical exams. “I think we have a slight misunderstanding. Are these ‘good feelings’ you’re explaining in the water somehow?”  
  
Lady Oxiva smiles. “Yes. Of course; the good feelings fill our water with joy and light.”  
  
Oh, it’s in the water. Is that all?  
  
“Fuck,” Jim says emphatically. When Bones looks at him, he just shrugs. “What? Mind-altering substances in the water don’t put you in a ‘fuck’ state of mind…?”  
  
As soon as he says it, he figures it out.  
  
“Oh no,” Jim whines. “Not again. This is not my life.” Bones is just staring at him in slightly appalled confusion when Jim turns to Lady Oxiva. “Er, excuse my language.” She waves a dismissive fin, so he goes on, “Do the good feelings you’re talking about make people suddenly have to go have sex?”  
  
He hears Bones choking beside him and then,  
  
“Yes, of course,” Lady Oxiva replies. Now she looks confused. “If talks between clans go well, the good feelings are released and diplomatic ties are secured. Is this not the way of your people?”  
  
Jim smiles.  
  
So ‘good feelings’ are some kind of weird space compulsion drug. And Jim is betting that the ‘diplomatic ties’ are the same kind of diplomatic ties from Earth tribal history—marriage or children or something like it. Although the Porosi concept seems a little different, since the last time Jim checked neither Checkov nor Sulu was part fish. Or capable of reproducing.  
  
And the last thing he’s figured out is that whoever came up with the translations for Porosi to Standard needs to be punched repeatedly in the nuts.  
  
“Not so much,” Jim tells Lady Oxiva as nicely as he can while he’s fumbling for his communicator. “In fact, it’s considered a really bad thing to coerce judgment-impaired people into sex.”  
  
Lady Oxiva frowns. “It is chosen.”  
  
“It’s really not,” Jim promises her, because he knows Uhura. He certainly knows her feelings for Spock depressingly well, and Spock is not here. Problem? Oh yes.  
  
He calls in, “Kirk here. Requesting party beam up.”  
  
This still being his life, it would be Spock who responds, wouldn’t it? Of course. Jim doesn’t even know why he’s surprised. It wouldn’t do for his life to make it easy for him, oh goodness no. Ha ha ha.  
  
 _Damn it._  
  
“Spock here. Landing party status?”  
  
Well, Jim can’t speak for the rest of them, but he’s suddenly so hideously turned on that he’s clawing at his own skin for any friction and seriously, these thermals are mortifying in a whole new way.  
  
Jim reflexively grabs a plate and shoves it in front of his crotch as a fascinated Lady Oxiva stares. “ _Incapacitated_ ,” Jim grinds out, and why do words exist? Really? Why can’t people just moan and pant instead because it would be so much easier.  
  
“Has there been hostile action?” And Spock suddenly sounds intent. He sounds interested. He sounds…  
  
Oh fuck. This is unfair. Jim’s whole body is reacting like he’s a fricking Christmas tree of lust. He is on fire. “Captain, respond,” Spock demands and Jim’s mouth falls open. He gasps. The communicator falls out of his hands and he’s officially incapable of speaking.  
  
Or, you know, moving. Actually, what Jim needs to do is stand very still and take a lot of deep breaths for the next few hours? Days? Days, yeah. Sounds good.  
  
He motions to Bones, meaning _please pick up the communicator and tell Spock not to shoot at us_. But Bones is just squinting at him. Jim wants to roll his eyes. Like Bones has never seen Jim turned on before. They roomed together in the dorms for three years and their lock was busted. Wuss.  
  
He would roll his eyes, except. Yeah. Debilitated with lust, over here.  
  
Lady Oxiva is fluttering out of reach, looking deeply concerned. Jim instantly feels bad. Jim can’t believe he was actually about to shoot her. That… wouldn’t have been nice.  
  
“It’s alright,” Jim rasps at her. “I’m just,” and here he has to close his eyes for a minute and recite a few warp mechanics equations. “Going to get my people out of here. There’s been a miscommunica—“  
  
This is as far as Jim gets before Bones tackles him into the buffet table.  
  
Lady Oxiva floats overhead. She brightens at the sight. “Ah! I thought you exhibited a unique affinity for each other.”  
  
“Oh my god, get him off!” Jim shrieks (in a manfully dignified fashion), shoving a large crustacean into Bones’s face and trying to hold him back this way. Bones, for the record, appears to be trying to kiss Jim and just no, never, why does life hate him this much?  
  
“You have not chosen him?” Lady Oxiva says doubtfully. Jim is now throwing cutlery at his friend.  
  
“I swear to you that I did not!” Jim yelps, and manages to kick out Bones’s knee. He swims so that the buffet table is between them as Bones sits up, looking slightly crazed. “And neither did he, I _promise_ you; he will kill me if he finds out his lips got within two inches of my body!”  
  
Which is very true. Bones elaborated on this in great detail in the Academy. He told Jim exactly which hypos he’d use to do it too.  
  
It will be a long, painful death and Jim really doesn’t want to die.  
  
Speaking of which; Spock.  
  
Jim swears and dives under the buffet table, groping in the dark. He hears a muffled sound that makes his whole body shudder and a moan rip its way out of his throat—oh, and there are stars dazzling him under his skin. It’s a stretch, but Jim figures it’s probably Spock’s voice. He gropes in that direction until his fingers close over cool metal. He brings it to his ear.  
  
“Captain—“  
  
“ _Beam us up and do not shoot anything!_ ” Jim bellows into the communicator and then ends the connection before his limbs can lose any more feeling. The blood has found other, creative areas to rally in.  
  
Naturally, he wind gets knocked out of him after that. There is human weight flopped on top of him and Jim feels lips against his shoulder.  
  
“Dammit, Bones,” he growls, grappling with his friend. His limbs feel like replicated noodles after hearing Spock’s voice. “I am not making my only functional friendship weird! Get off!”  
  
The water helps Jim out, ironically. Bones seems confused by the lack of assistance from gravity. Jim is about to slide back out from under the table when his communicator chirps.  
  
“WHAT?” He demands, flipping it open with one hand, while the other tries to drag Bones away by the ear.  
  
“Captain.” Spock is not in his happy place. Jim knows it must about be killing him that not only is information being withheld, and Jim hung up on him too. Really. It’s hurting his soul. Jim can tell because of how incredibly pissy Spock sounds right now, and the way it’s making Jim want to roll over and beg nicely. Bones descends and Jim can’t move his limbs to escape.  
  
“Shit,” he groans.  
  
He’s suddenly massively glad about the fishbowl.  
  
“I require the landing party status—“  
  
“Tell me why aren’t you beaming us up, in ten words or less, Mr. Spock! Now go!” Jim shouts into his communicator, more than a little desperate. He’s going to lose his mind. He’s pretty much convinced that this ‘choosing’ process ends up making you go for whoever is closest. Suddenly Bones is looking good in ways that haven’t been a problem since freshman year and no, no, no, this is not happening.  
  
There is a long pause where Jim thinks this is one of the moments when Spock is going to be an ass, but then (sullenly), “There are transporter shields impeding our assistance.”  
  
“What the _hell_ ,” Jim growls, and Bones does this massively evil chortle above him and palms Jim’s very obvious problem through his thermals. Whatever Jim had in mind cuts itself off in an explosion of sparks and stars. Jim moans, arms around Bones’s neck in an instant.  
  
It’s Bones—fuck, why did that seem weird before? Bones is hot. He’s hot and they get along and play poker and Bones has already picked up the socks Jim left lying around the room for three years. They’re practically married. Socks equals marriage. Everyone knows that.  
  
Benefits. That’s what Jim needs to be concerned with. Marriage has good benefits.  
  
And… stuff. Whatever. Oh god, he wants to have sex _now_.  
  
“Fucking fishbowl,” Jim swears. His lips are aching with the need for contact, but it’s in the way. Bones is frustrated too. He appears to be trying to claw his way through the glass. He’s like a really big squirrel. A hot squirrel.  
  
“Captain?” It’s Spock.  
  
Spock sounds concerned. Does that even happen?  
  
“Yeah?” Jim calls back. There are lazy shudders going up and down his spine, making him arch up into Bones’s hands.  
  
“Captain, are you well?”  
  
Oh yeah. Jim is _perfect_. “Uh-huh,” Jim purrs, grinning up at Bones, who smirks back wordlessly and does something with his wrist that makes Jim’s head hit the floor hard. Sparks again. “The… the transporter shields, right?” He wheezes into the communicator. “On it.”  
  
He’s already sort of forgotten what he’s supposed to be on—it can’t be anything important because right now Bones is on him, and Jim regrets nothing—when suddenly Lady Oxiva sticks her head under the table. Jim grins over at her happily. “Heeeyy.”  
  
“You are well now,” she says, obviously relieved. “Will you come to your chambers?”  
  
That sounds nice. Jim nods, and tugs on Bones until they’re both sliding out from the table. Bones’s hands are all over him. Not in the medical exam kind of way. Doesn’t hurt at all. Jim is laughing, because it’s very, very silly. Jim and Bones. Kind of obvious, when you think about it.  
  
“Oh right,” he says when they’re halfway to the port hole. “Lady Oxiva. The transporter shields. Can you take them down?”  
  
She blinks at him. “You are still dissatisfied? But you have chosen.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jim admits, and sags against Bones’s shoulder. “But my friend on the ship doesn’t like it and he’s got to get everybody out.”  
  
Lady Oxiva’s facial scales change colors frantically. “But diplomatic ties must be secured…”  
  
Jim thinks about it. It’s hard. Bones feels really, really good.  
  
But this is important.  
  
 _My people_ , Jim thinks dizzily, somewhere in the back of his mind.  
  
“I’ll do it,” Jim’s mouth says. It was kind of always smarter than Jim’s brain. “Can it just be me who does it?” Lady Oxiva frowns, and Jim ends up frowning back. “Cause I’m the captain.”  
  
“Yes,” she finally says. “Yes. If it needs to be that way. We will prevent the transporter from reaching you.” She goes off... somewhere.  
  
And then there’s Bones—his smell and his warmth and the pressure of his touch. And Jim wants sex, he always wants sex, and he’s not sure why there’s some part of him feeling so bitter about that. He _likes_ Bones. Bones is his best friend.  
  
In a few seconds Bones dissolves out of his arms in a swirl of lights and Lady Oxiva comes back. She touches Jim’s arm lightly with one of her long, trailing fins and Jim looks up.  
  
She’s really hot, actually. In a fishy kind of way. Funky mermaid.  
  
Jim’s body aches.  
  
“Come with me to the chambers,” she says.  
  
That sounds like a good idea. “Okay,” Jim agrees.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ba-da-bing! Another update. Sorry for the timing fail. My internet is being an asshat.
> 
> Also, Spock will ACTUALLY be in the next chapter. Exciting, no?
> 
> Sorry the last chapter was so spaz-tastic. Working on it, I swear. Will update the fourth chapter to suck less in a second.  
> \----

“They’re all fine, it’s okay, calm down and breathe.”  
  
This is what Bones opens with when Jim materializes on the transporter, dripping and shivering and mostly incoherent. Bones has a tricorder and a small legion of nurses who seem very fascinated with Jim’s respirator. Jim stares glumly at the device. “So you got beamed out, did you?”  
  
“Yes,” Bones says shortly, scanning Jim all over (and, inauspiciously, making no moves towards the fishbowl).  
  
“And nobody ended up brain dead from aphrodisiac or anything?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“And how long was the respirator supposed to keep working?”  
  
“Eight hours,” Bones answers. He proceeds to pause what he’s doing to glare at Jim.  
  
“What?” Jim protests. “You weren’t going to tell me.” He’d spend a moment being glad that he’s not as dead as he should be—that was at least eleven hours he spent on Poros—but mostly he’s too busy grinning at Bones. Bones. Grouchy, tricorder-wielding, _sane_ Bones.  
  
He leans down to croon into Bones’s ear, “Oh, I missed you, baby…”  
  
Bones proceeds to try to slaughter him with hypos, but Jim survives. He ends up treated for long-term oxygen deprivation and muscle fatigue, which is pretty much as bad as death. Plus he still has the flu.  
  
“Why can’t you treat my flu?” He whines from the bed where he’s been confined until Bones’s frantic legion of medical professionals can make sure his heart and brain are still working okay in spite of the fact that Jim went about three hours on pitifully little oxygen.  
  
(He’s kind of not telling them about the thirty or so massive dickhead assassins thing that happened while he was suffocating. Those situations usually make his best friend throw things. Usually at him. Besides, he won anyway. All those advanced weapon courses paid off.)  
  
“You nearly died, Jim! Focus on that!” Bones roars from his office. He’s taken up semi-permanent residence in there, either because Jim has inflicted some emotional trauma on him by trying to be dead again, or because he’s terrified Jim will fake-flirt with him. But Bones so clearly earned the flirting. He tackled Jim to the _floor_. He deserves to _suffer_.  
  
Jim thinks about nearly being dead. “Yeah, the flu is still worse.”  
  
Jim thinks it’s nice that people have learned to automatically dodge the things that come flying out of Bones’s office door when he’s pissed. “Open up,” Nurse Sulu says, and Jim obeys.  
  
Okay, Sulu isn’t actually a nurse. But Jim might possibly have annoyed Bones’s staff into catatonic fits and Sulu has basic training.  
  
Anyway, Sulu is nice about it and doesn’t try to choke him with a cotton swab like Nurse Andels.  
  
While he’s there, Sulu says conversationally. “So, about what happened on the planet. Thanks for getting everybody out of there before anything bad happened.”  
  
Jim smiles around the tissue sampling implement, and then when he can, he asks, “Friend of yours?”  
  
Sulu has this really devious smile. Jim smiles back. “So...? I take it you and a certain Russian wunderkind…?” He gestures.  
  
“I will now accidentally inject you with Ulpor measles,” Sulu tells him seriously and Jim laughs his way back into the pillow.  
  
“Stop laughing!” Bones shouts at them. “No laughing after you’ve tried killing yourself!”  
  
So of course now they’re both cracking up, and the door swoosh open to admit a swarm of people. And would you look at that, the rest of his crew missed him too! Ha, called it. They’ve been under _Spock’s_ control for the past twelve hours. Jim hopes no one has been marooned.  
  
Chekov makes it over first, with a cry of “Keptin!” that gets muffled in Jim’s blanket (because he gets a blanket for oxygen deprivation, or just because Sulu felt sorry for him after Bones wouldn’t let Jim change out of the thermals). Jim awkwardly pats his distraught navigator’s head.  
  
Isiira is offering her best wishes and some tea, and Maurengi tells Jim that he is a weak worm-man because this is totally how Maurengi shows his love, and Thrinet coos over everyone. There’s about fifteen other people, and Jim gleans in bits and pieces that there’s a list.  
  
Bones put up a Visit Your Bedridden Captain list.  
  
Jim… doesn’t know how to feel about that one.  
  
Uhura is even here, and Jim is all set to start swearing from one end of the ship to the other that the _shungen_ thing was not about Spock. He is not above lying. And he wants to live. Jim quails into his covers, and absolutely doesn’t have a contingency for Uhura bending down and wrapping her arms around him.  
  
He blinks into her shoulder like an idiot. Is she going to whisper threats into his ear? Is she going to stab him while he’s incapacitated?  
  
She sobs, “I’m so glad you’re alright.”  
  
In no way does this compute—Uhura is _crying?_ —but Jim hugs her automatically, patting her back. He also babbles like a moron. “Oh come on, like you weren’t rooting for Spock to get an early promotion. I know half of your guys were partying all night—hey, do you need a tissue?—and it’s not like we don’t all know that I wasn’t exactly _complaining_ , if you know what I mean…”  
  
This? This is one of those moments where Jim would actually welcome the nudge-nudge wink-wink thing. Anything to stop the onslaught of feels. But apparently his crew is eerily nice to people with oxygenation problems. The whole room goes quiet, no one laughs, and Jim is left feeling deeply awkward in the arms of a friend(?) he’s pretty sure has spent a good chunk of her life plotting his downfall.  
  
“That’s not true, man,” Sulu says at last. “You got us out of there. It’s not like we don’t know what you did for us.”  
  
“Um,” Jim says, steadily more awkward.  
  
“We tried very hard to take down their shields,” Chekov fiercely informs him. “But we weren’t able too. They had a random noise emitter hooked up to the energy field.” He proceeds to list of a string of calculations that Jim is just too damn tired to understand. He’s sure it’s very reassuring.  
  
His stomach is already full of warmth and half-nauseated fluttering by the time Uhura huffs at him, “You’re such an idiot. You don’t have to act like that around us. We actually _know_ you,” and gives him this little squeeze that is really not homicidal at all before letting him go. “Everybody’s been worried as hell, Kirk, now shut up and feel the love.”  
  
“Um,” Jim hedges. He casts his eyes around the room—even Bones has poked his head out and is giving Jim a very bloodshot look that Jim is instantly guilty for. How much Bones drank last night and whether he slept at all? Jim coughs until he’s released from the hugging. “…You guys all know that I’m drugged, right? Sedatives.”  
  
Bones opens his mouth. Jim silences him with a look.  
  
“Sure,” Sulu ends up drawling. He’s rolling his eyes and Chekov is snickering. Jim scowls at them both and takes a deep breath.  
  
“You guys are the best crew anyone could ever have,” Jim croaks. “Sorry I worried you. I’d do it again anyway.” _I will not let anything happen to my crew, not if I can do the slightest goddamn thing._ The sentiment hangs in the air like a big arrow over Jim’s head stating: You Are a Tremendous Girl.  
  
Jim clears his throat. “Now everybody, go get some sleep because I’m the captain and I can order you to do stuff like this.”  
  
Bones, wonderful human being that he is, shoos them out before they can disrupt Jim’s worldview any further. Jim does not actually pull the covers over his head, and Bones approaches his bedside. “Nicely said,” he tells Jim. “And all you’ve had is a little decongestant. Impressive.”  
  
“Go sleep,” Jim grumbles, eyelids sealed determinedly shut. “At least eleven hours. Now.” He’s pretty sure Bones is grinning, which is terrifying enough in and of itself.  
  
“You’re _such_ a girl,” Bones calls on his way back to the office.  
  
“Go away; you suck,” Jim calls back, and knows that they’re going to be okay.

\----

Interestingly, the fiasco on Poros ends with Jim in the good graces of pretty much his entire crew. He’s in sick bay for a week because his heart apparently got pretty torn up from oxygen deprivation and they are forever treating it for necrosis, to the point where Jim is just moaning “let me die” because everything sucks, he’s sick, and people keep visiting him to be unsettlingly nice. He’s not sure who to blame for this. Probably Uhura. It’s got to be some kind of reverse-psychology revenge.  
  
Basically the whole crew has decided he’s some sort of soft squishy creature that needs their love and affection. It’s got Jim crawling out of his skin because…  
  
BECAUSE IT’S WEIRD. AND FINE, HE’S SCREWED UP IF HE CAN’T DEAL WITH PEOPLE WHO AREN’T MOCKING HIM but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s WEIRD.  
  
Bones keeps threatening him with therapy, but Jim figures that once he’s no longer a pitiful-looking lump in a sick bay bed, they’ll get over their sudden desire to cuddle him for his brave sacrifice or _whatever it is._  
  
Anyway, that’s not really what’s bothering him.  
  
The thing is that this whole time, Spock hasn’t come to see Jim once.  
  
He’s not lonely. Or anything.  
  
It’s just that the last time he was in the hospital, Spock at least came by to look superior at his bedside. Jim’s sure as shit not expecting anything (he only _almost_ died this time; last time he really died), but if Spock is going to send him reports and request approval of mission parameters like Jim is still in charge, he could at least bring them down in person instead of sending yeoman Morrison down twice a day with a tottering stack of PADDs.  
  
Jim’s working theories are:  
  
1) Listening to his superior moaning into a communicator was weirder for Spock than Jim thought. This could fuck up their professional relationship.  
  
2) Spock got touchy for whatever reason about Jim not immediately explaining things. And hanging up on him. And since Jim usually has the manners of a rabid wolverine—although how Spock could have missed this is a mystery—this could fuck up their professional relationship.  
  
3) Spock is doing some crazy Vulcan thing that isn’t Jim’s fault because Jim didn’t do anything to merit _aggressive ignoring_ , but is just because Spock is a Vulcan. And also crazy. This could fuck up their professional relationship.  
  
“If you don’t stop climbing the walls looking for your boyfriend, I swear I will hypo you into a medical coma,” Bones tells Jim kindly.  
  
“I’m not looking for Spock,” Jim immediately replies.  
  
“Oh good,” Bones snorts, setting out the cards on Jim’s shins. He seems to get a kick out of Jim not being able to reach them and having to flail uselessly for a while. “You’ve stopped protesting that he’s not your boyfriend.”  
  
“He’s Uhura’s boyfriend,” Jim corrects, and makes Bones’s life better by flailing for a card until Bones hands it over. “I’m ignoring your willful ignorance. Because the definition of insanity is telling you that Spock isn’t my boyfriend and expecting a different outcome.”  
  
“Yeah, sure,” Bones tells him, and deals a card on Jim’s ankle. Jim doesn’t even try. He just glowers. “You’re going to be released in two days. Stop annoying everyone.”  
  
“It’s been a _week_ ,” Jim protests.  
  
And maybe that’s why the warm fuzzies from his crew are getting to him. It’s just serving to make him notice the very conspicuous absence of anything (well, Spock wouldn’t do warm or fuzzy. But he might at least do fondly contemptuous) from his First. Jim knows he’s being obnoxious, but he’s got no clue whatsoever about what Spock’s deal is and he’s worked himself into an intense paranoia, where he expects this nefarious deal to involve Spock leaving the _Enterprise_ or resigning as First Officer because he hates Jim so much.  
  
Let’s put it this way: yesterday, Jim spent his boredom imagining all the different scenarios in which Spock gave him the “it’s been real, laterz” speech. Jim proceeded not to sleep that night.  
  
“It’s been a _week_ ,” Bones says with a very different emphasis, suggesting that Jim acting like one week out of his life is the end of the universe as he knows it might be a touch overdramatic. Jim frowns at him. “In 48 hours you can go up to the bridge, argue about whether or not his ears are pointy, and try to get him to kill you. It seems to work for everything else.”  
  
“I am a _strategist_ ,” Jim mutters sulkily.  
  
“You’re suicidal, is what you are,” Bones mutters darkly.  
  
“Could you go talk to Spock for me?” Jim asks. Thirteen minutes later, he checks the chronometer again and sighs. “Okay, Bones, seriously. Stop laughing. You’re going to asphyxiate yourself.”  
  
Bones continues to wheeze from the floor.  
  
He just wishes Spock would say something, you know?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... sorry, guys. Holidays, shit + fan, et cetera.  
> Ha ha, but look! Spock is... definitely in this chapter! Ha. Hahhh...  
> Don't even pretend like you hate me. You know I'm awesome.  
> So, you know how I said this stories were going to have a certain type of ending...?  
> \----

_Man up, okay, Jesus, it’s not like he’s going to off you in the middle of a hallway._  
  
Jim promptly thinks about how fun it had been. You know. Being choked out by a homicidal Spock on the bridge in front of his friends? Yeah. That had been really… terrific.  
  
 _But,_ Jim reminds himself, _you definitely haven’t insulted his mother any time in the past few months, and Spock is more or less tolerant of your existence. And anyway, right now people on this ship like you enough to maybe step in this time._  
  
He has never gotten so many high fives just strolling the route to Spock’s quarters. His palm kind of stings.  
  
Spock will not give him a high five unless he’s intoxicated to the umpteenth degree, but Jim is going to buzz for entry anyway. Now. Seriously. Right this very minute. As soon as he stops fidgeting like a moron in front of Spock’s door.  
  
Jim takes a fortifying breath and hits the button. Spock is in here; that’s important to remember. Spock is all going about his Spock business. Meditating and going over scientific analysis and shit—and Jim likes him. Whatever problem has developed between them since the events on Poros, he’s going to batter it down with his unique combination of charm and stubbornness and there will be chess, dammit, whether Spock likes it or not.  
  
This all kind of goes to hell when Spock answers the door and Jim’s heart lurches to the ground between them going ‘look at me! Look at me!”  
  
Jim swallows the sudden desire to just stare pathetically into his First’s eyes and pastes on a healthy smirk. “Hey, Spock. Can you let me in or are you too busy to talk?”  
  
Spock replies with, “As I am in no way incapacitated and am currently within speaking distance, please state your business.”  
  
Which is par for the course because to Jim’s knowledge only Spock’s dad and Uhura have seen the inside of Spock’s room. Since Uhura refused to talk about it (and Sarek makes Jim want to crawl under a rock and die for various reasons), Jim has firmly concluded that the whole space has been painted lime green, that there’s disco music, and that the walls are covered with mementos from Spock’s childhood obsession with air ballet.  
  
Or, you know, that it’s a perfect replica of the science station. Seriously, what does Spock have in there?  
  
Anyway, Jim knows from experience that trying to crane his head over Spock’s shoulder to get a look will yield up exactly nothing. He doesn’t bother; instead he dials up the charm. “Well, it’s just come to my attention that I haven’t seen you around much these past few days…”  
  
Spock stares at him emotionlessly. “You have just been released from sick bay. I have been attending duties as acting captain of this ship.”  
  
Jim scowls at Spock briefly. “Yeah, thanks. My human memory couldn’t keep up with that. You really did me a solid there.”  
  
Spock tilts his head. In an unquestionably innocent tone, “Then I am puzzled as to the nature of this visit, Captain.”  
  
Bullshit he is. Jim has to fight the urge to grin because Spock is mocking the captain and therefore doesn’t deserve positive reinforcement. _Tell him that you missed him,_ Jim’s stupid half urges. _Tell him you’ve been waiting for him to show up the whole time you were in sick bay, because you need him._  
  
 _Tell him it’s about chess,_ suggests the less suicidal half.  
  
“It’s about chess,” Jim tells Spock as flatly as he can when Spock’s Vulcan humor is surfacing. “I mean—I don’t want to get rusty. And I’ve missed playing with you. I could really go for a game right now.” He forces himself to add, “If you’re not swamped with paperwork.”  
  
“I am not engaged in any crucial endeavor at this time,” Spock says slowly. Jim’s grin threatens to split his face, and then Spock adds, “However, I am sure you will find a more suitable opponent for yourself elsewhere on the ship.”  
  
From the floor, where it’s been flopping around like a giddy puppy in Spock’s presence, Jim’s heart squeezes. There’s a boot pressing down on it. One called: Reality. “Insulting my chess game already?” Jim asks, managing a laugh. Spock’s face is very still. Jim’s heart aches again. “This could be my faulty human memory acting up, but the last time we played—“  
  
And Spock actually interrupts him, which he never does, ever. Jim’s eyes go a little wide as Spock snaps, “Irrelevant. The fact stands that you, Captain, will find more engaging and appropriate company elsewhere. I ask that you depart and seek it.”  
  
Jim’s mouth hangs open.  
  
He’d chalk this up to a Vulcan mood swing because it’s not as if _that_ hasn’t happened before—but Spock is effectively telling Jim that he’s being kicked out of Spock’s private life. And yeah, Jim probably just occupies the tiniest fraction of what Spock thinks about when he’s not on duty, but fuck that. Jim doesn’t even know what he’s done wrong.  
  
“Tough,” he retorts. When Spock’s gaze hardens, Jim glares right back. “If you aren’t feeling up to it tonight, that’s fine. But you’re going to talk to me, Spock, whether you like it or not. I’ve had enough of this twisted game of telephone.”  
  
“As I am speaking with you currently, Captain, your statement does not make—“  
  
“’State your business’?” Jim repeats through his teeth. He feels a little sick and shaky, which he’d really like to blame on having been nearly dead a few days ago, but he knows that’s not it. He’s certainly not showing it to Spock right now. His tone has gone black with anger. “Look, whatever problem you suddenly have—“  
  
“I am fully functional; do not—“  
  
“Problem with me, then,” Jim says over him. They’ve gotten good and loud and the crew is staring. Fuck, doesn’t that make Jim just want to sink through the floor casing and die, because getting this kind of treatment from Spock would hurt bad enough with just one person in attendance. But now Jim has a grand total of twenty people all trying to look like they’re not eavesdropping on this conversation, Spock looking like the past year of Jim clawing his way through all of his emotional barriers never happened, and the feeling in Jim’s stomach is like he’s getting shot.  
  
The thing is, he knows he should just demand Spock let him inside the room, or they go finish this conversation in Jim’s quarters or something. This is not a conversation they need to have in front of people who take orders from them.  
  
And he can’t fucking do it. Not when Spock is looking at him like he’s such a pest. He can’t hash this out in the space where they used to actually talk to each other and have whatever Spock calls fun. Jim pretty much knows he’d do something unforgivably stupid like start a fistfight or end up throwing something.  
  
Instead he takes a step closer to Spock, because he can’t help it, because he’s mad as hell, because he _didn’t do anything_ —and snaps, “Whatever problem you’ve got, lay it on me. Tell me what I did that was so objectionable because I don’t know why you’re showing your ass all of a sudden.”  
  
Spock’s lip curls at the idiom, and then he says, “I doubt your capacity as captain of this ship.”  
  
Jim just freezes.  
  
Yeah, _the whole fucking deck_ freezes in place. Sounds like nobody is breathing.  
  
Spock adds, “In fact, I doubt your capacity as an officer of Starfleet. You take needless risks which consistently put your fellow officers in jeopardy, and you cannot be trusted not to revert to your banal instincts upon the slightest provocation.”  
  
Jim jerks like he’s been slapped. “The fuck?” He snarls, and suddenly heartache is the furthest thing from his mind because all he wants to do is redact that statement with his fist. He tenses like he’s going to do it too, but Spock hardly blinks. Jim is ballistic, all but shouting, “I did everything I could to protect this crew, Spock— _everything_ —and you do not get to make the situation my fault just because you’re uncomfortable with your Vulcan feelings. I was drugged, we were _all_ drugged, and I made the best of a shitty situation. So don’t you dare imply that I wasn’t acting in the _Enterprise’s_ best interests!”  
  
Spock inclines his head and says, “After reviewing the situation, I have determined that it is statistically improbable that you engineered the situation for your own satisfaction.”  
  
“WHAT?!” Jim explodes, because it does not matter what species you are—that was a cheap shot. _I’m almost sure you didn’t risk the mission and your crew in an effort to get laid?_ What in the HOLY FUCK?  
  
He’s too mad to actually form words and Spock continues, unruffled, “However, it was certainly through your actions that the situation came about. It was you who elected to stay behind to engage in sexual relations, activities which resulted in several hours of high alert with your status unknown—“  
  
“To get my crew out of there—“  
  
“A decision which almost led to your death, the eventuality of which would throw this ship further in jeopardy, to say nothing of the trade discussions on Poros—“  
  
“I was drugged, dammit—“  
  
“And furthermore, it was you who failed to notice the drugging in the first place,” Spock finishes, all but growling. “You allowed the situation to escalate until the whereabouts of many crewmembers was unknown, to the point where you then had few options left to you.” As Jim reels, he adds, “It is only because I know the _extent_ of your intellectual _capacity_ that I conclude this was not a situation of your contrivance. _Captain_.”  
  
Utter. Fucking. Silence.  
  
There’s a good bit Jim could say to this. For one, he could tell Spock that he’s full of shit.  
  
It was Spock who decided not to beam down and back Jim up. Even though he knew that Jim was sick and basically useless, that McCoy had to shoot him up with something psychoactive just to keep Jim on his feet, even though Jim had come and _asked_ for Spock’s help. Jim hadn’t seen his crew disappearing because Jim hadn’t been fit for duty, and no one could blame him for that.  
  
Except Jim _completely_ blames himself for that. It _was_ his fault. He _should_ have noticed. He shouldn’t have needed Spock at all.  
  
He’s the captain. That makes this his responsibility, and he’d failed. He’d made the best of his failure, yes, but that didn’t change the fact that a captain shouldn’t need anyone else to review his decisions. Not if he’d made the right ones in the first place.  
  
It isn’t like these facts aren’t constantly crashing around in his head, reminding him that he’s still the same Iowan fuck up he’s always been. It isn’t like everyone doesn’t know it. Spock is just the first person to say it out loud.  
  
Jim’s heart is basically pulp underfoot at this point, and he and Spock are left still and silent on Spock’s doorstep in front of a growing crowd of their subordinates. There are a lot of things Jim should do.  
  
Hell. It’s not like he ever gets it right, does he?  
  
Spock actually stumbles back with the force of Jim’s fist. It’s a blur of motion and then they’re frozen again, staring at each other. Spock’s eyes are the widest Jim has ever seen them. There’s a moment’s satisfaction to be had from the fact that Spock is good and ruffled, and Jim’s knuckles arc pain all the way up his shoulder as Spock straightens and says,  
  
“I will not engage in a display of physical violence with you.” But his eyes are narrowing and Jim knows exactly why Spock’s hands have clenched into fists. He’s been in a lot of bar fights. “The outcome is already certain.”  
  
 _I’m not fighting with you because you know I’ll kick your ass?_ Clearly, Spock has not been in many fights himself. He doesn’t know the satisfaction of it. It’s not about winning. It’s about how many hits you get in and how many people leave limping. It’s about how good it hurts when it’s done. Pride beaten into skin.  
  
Jim’s smile is savage now. “Won’t know until we try, will we?” He shoves Spock. The Vulcan staggers back a few more steps. There’s a tremor in his hands. Jim shoves him again, with all his weight. Goading, “Come on, Spock. What’s really stopping you? Afraid a human like me might actually beat you?” Spock nearly loses his footing this time and Jim realizes that he’s halfway into Spock’s room right now. The lights are low, but he can make out shadowy outlines on the walls.  
  
Spock’s expression is still like the calm before the storm. His knuckles are as white as Jim’s. And behind them, Jim doesn’t even know how many people are watching.  
  
Spock doesn’t say a word.  
  
“File a formal complaint with Starfleet command,” Jim finally breathes. His hands drop back to his sides. They’re shaking. He’s shaking all over. His skin is crawling.  
  
“I will not,” Spock says, probably just to be contrary. His eyes glint without any light. “However, this is my three days’ notice. I am resigning from the _Enterprise_.”  
  
And after all the shit Jim has gone through with Spock, the only thing he can think to say is a simple,  
  
“Okay.”  
  
And then he walks out without knowing jack about the inside of Spock’s room. Or anything else about him, really.  
  
Fuck him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I don't have the energy for comments. You know what Christmas spirit is? It's what happens when your soul escapes and it leaves, like, pixie dust or some shit in your chest.
> 
> Humbug.
> 
> So yeah. Not dead. Although the holidays are making a bid at contradicting this.
> 
> Hey, look guys! Jim's all depressed too.
> 
> \----

By the time Jim has gotten comfortable his quarters (read: stopped kicking things), Bones has buzzed him twice and his PADD keeps pinging as people send him messages. They might be anywhere from resignation notices because without Spock, seriously, how will this ship keep running? Might be an old fashioned electronic pink slip. Might be notices that Jim has won the lottery.  
  
Jim wouldn’t know. He hasn’t looked.  
  
Bones finally abuses his CMO privileges and just lets himself in. He doesn’t say anything as Jim glares up at him, just hammers a bottle of something that smells powerfully alcoholic into Jim’s solar plexus and grabs his hand. He starts scanning as Jim winces. He’s pretty sure there are broken bones. He belted Spock a good one.  
  
“Go away,” Jim tries. Bones doesn’t dignify that with an answer, just pulls out the osteomote and starts fixing the pain in Jim’s hand.  
  
It’s really quiet in Jim’s quarters. The PADD pings again and Jim is pretty sure they both jump. He laughs softly at the floor. “You must think that I’m a fucking idiot.”  
  
“I always think that,” Bones answers. “Now is no different from usual.”  
  
Once released, Jim tucks his hand back at his side and resumes staring at the wall. “You heard about what happened?”  
  
Bones settles beside him, and sets about uncorking the monstrosity sloshing in Jim’s lap. “This ship,” he announces, “Is one oversized gossip den. I don’t think _anywhere_ hasn’t heard about it.” Jim waits for Bones to call him an idiot, but instead his hand gets curled around a whiskey glass. Jim stares at it dully.  
  
“Drink,” Bones prompts, and knocks back his own.  
  
Jim obeys after a moment. When he’s done, he says, “Bones, if I get demoted or discharged or whatever happens—stay on this ship.” He meets his friend’s eyes for a moment before he looks away. “They need you. And you belong here. Call it a favor to me.”  
  
Bones fills Jim’s glass again. “You’re not getting discharged. Fuck.” Jim drains his glass and Bones actually fills his again before seeing to his own. “No one would discharge you over this. What you did on Poros…” Bones pauses. “…It would get most people medals.”  
  
“I let it happen,” Jim responds, setting his glass aside. All of a sudden his head is too heavy for his neck and he lets it hang. He digs a hand into his hair. “Don’t make excuses for me.”  
  
“Have I ever made excuses for you and your halfwit problems?” Bones replies pleasantly. “Now you really _are_ being an idiot. Or did you somehow miss how everyone has been fawning over you? God. And here I was worried that you’d have an even more over-inflated sense of your self-importance.” He shoves Jim’s glass towards his hand. “ _Drink._ ”  
  
“Not thirsty,” Jim mutters, shoving it back.  
  
“Jim.” Bones’s voice is heavy and unimpressed. “Just because it comes from Spock doesn’t make it true. You’re not getting fired.”  
  
Jim groans at him and falls back into his mattress. The ceiling overhead spins slightly. “What was in that booze?”  
  
“It’s good for you,” Bones assures him. “Puts hair on your chest.”  
  
Jim snorts at him.  
  
And then Bones asks, “Are we going to have to talk about what happened on Poros?”  
  
Several things go through Jim’s mind at once. The first is that he’s somehow ended up in Topsy-Turvy Land and Bones wants to discuss making out with him. The second is that he really doesn’t want to talk about what Bones is actually suggesting. “Nope,” Jim says, injecting a healthy dose of utterly faked brightness into his tone. “I’m _good_.”  
  
“In a medical capacity, I know what happened,” Bones goes on, totally ignoring Jim’s discomfort. Jim rolls off the bed with a shaky huff of breath and snatches the bottle to take a long drink directly from it. Ha, take that. Fucking with sanitation regs. Bones glares at him for it too, which Jim enjoys. “But if what happened down there is why you’re letting this get to you…”  
  
For a moment, Jim considers that. “Nah,” he decides. “It’s probably just that it came from Spock.” He shrugs and stops talking. This is better than launching into any one of the rants that have been filling his head since he came back here. Spock is such a…  
  
His PADD pings again. Jim glowers at it.  
  
“Hey, what about those mandatory therapy sessions you came up with?” Bones drawls. “You know, for the people that keep getting screwed over by the _Enterprise_ curse?”  
  
Jim cracks up. Bones actually referred to it as a curse. Either they’re both really drunk or Bones is humoring him. Either one strikes him as equally amusing.  
  
“You’re not exempt because you’re the captain,” Bones points out. Which Jim knows in a professional capacity. It doesn’t stop him from aiming his most pathetic frown at Bones. “I’ve just been letting you off the hook because I feel bad for our counselors. No one should have to deal with you.”  
  
Which Jim translates to, _I know you’re so badass you will never require therapy, ever._ He takes a moment to appreciate Bones.  
  
“But help convince me here, Jim. You’re not exactly looking your best right now.”  
  
Jim sighs, and hands the bottle back. “It really doesn’t have anything to do with the sex, Bones.” At his friend’s dubious look, he adds, “No, really. It was actually pretty good sex, for fish people sex.” Also, Jim had been in Academy the last time he got any action.  
  
Any. Action.  
  
“Right up until the end, when you were suffocating?” Bones comments dryly.  
  
Well, actually by that point, the main event had concluded. Jim had been lying in one of the Porosi nests and regaining mastery of his higher functions. His new intimate acquaintances had been fluttering around him and chattering about everything from music to sex to Federation politics. It had been pleasant. And then the door had exploded and in charged a whole bunch of fish-people carrying wickedly sharp tridents.  
  
Cause it just wouldn’t be cosmic sexual shenanigans without people trying to kill them.  
  
Apparently some of the Porosi were pissed about buddying up with the Federation and had wanted to prove it by assassinating all of the drugged-up _Enterprise_ crew (who were no longer present. Except for Jim. Awesome).  
  
Feeling like he was breathing through a straw had been less pressing than taking out those bastards, so there you go. Jim would like to think that the Porosi—who were remarkably courteous in bed—would have been dismayed enough to send him back to the ship if he’d started turning blue in the middle of getting their sexy on.  
  
“Kind of?” Jim eventually says in response to Bones’s question. Bones rolls his eyes. “What? It’s a kink.” That Jim doesn’t have. “Don’t act like you’re as pure as the driven snow.”  
  
“Kinks do not extend to the verge of cardiac arrest by oxygen deprivation,” Bones replies. “But go on.” _Please,_ his expression seems to say, _I invite you to lie to me even more. You know where your ass will wind up._  
  
Jim deflates a little. “Look, forget about the suffocating thing.”  
  
 _Never in a million years,_ says Bones’s face. “Suuure,” he drawls.  
  
Jim makes a face. “It’s complicated. The sex was alright, I’m alright—it’s just…” He tries to make a gesture to explain. It fails. He ends up shoving the bottle back at Bones and sighing. “...Losing control like that. I knew that I needed to be concerned about my crew. I didn’t even know if they’d been released. But I couldn’t think about it.”  
  
“You were somewhat preoccupied,” Bones points out.  
  
“You don’t understand,” Jim growls, struggling. “The communicator—it was right there. I could have reached over and grabbed it. I could have called in.”  
  
“But you didn’t,” Bones fills in. “Because you were drugged up enough that you didn’t care?”  
  
“I did care,” Jim says viciously. “I _did_ care. The whole time—I cared so much. But I couldn’t…” He gestures, and this time he seems to cinch it.  
  
“Yeah,” Bones says, deflecting a hand that flails at his face and knocking it back to Jim’s hip. His voice is almost gentle. “So then Spock goes and says that you’re all useless and hormonal like regular people, and you get pissed enough to deck him on camera.”  
  
Jim puts his face into his hands and groans. “ _Fuck._ ”  
  
“Yeah,” Bones agrees. There’s some very non-judgmental silence in which Jim hates himself, and absolutely loathes the pictures that are circulating through this ship at this very moment. Bones speaks up, “If it helps, I don’t think you need the therapy.”  
  
“Gee thanks, Bones,” Jim grumbles through his fingers. “Thanks so much.”  
  
“Get back over here and get drunk,” the CMO orders. And who is the lowly captain to refuse? He slouches back up next to his friend, who hands him a glass and a hypo full of hangover detoxing chemicals.  
  
“Spock is leaving,” Jim says into his glass, after a while.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Jim drinks.

\----

Jim and Spock are the very definition of icy professionalism on the bridge. Spock studiously avoids looking over at him. Jim has never heard anyone deliver minutiae details about his space scans so _aggressively_. Jim demonstrates his maturity by refusing to address Spock by name for their entire shift.  
  
He’s decided that if Spock asks for a recommendation, he will give him one. A _good_ one. It’s the least he can do—and it’s the truth. Any ship would be lucky to have him.  
…But Spock has to ask first.  
  
(Which he doesn’t.)  
  
The bridge crew is sending him and his First nervous glances like they’re about to draw their phasers. Or, you know, punch someone. Ha. Not even close. Jim does not want to be within three feet of Spock. He’s pretty sure his First is cool with that.  
  
By the end of the day, Jim is miserable enough that he actually picks up his PADD. He has 138 new messages.  
  
“God dammit,” Jim says irritably, and starts scrolling through them. Some are private communiqués of support that make Jim feel like scowling and giggling simultaneously because he does not appreciate anyone claiming that Spock is an idiot (however circuitously) but he also… is kind of touched.  
  
The majority are images from the security cameras that people are asking him to refute because they seem to think it’s a prank. Why, after all, would their illustrious captain sock their beloved First Officer in the nose? Jim leaves those unanswered because they’ve probably figured it out by now. He keeps scrolling, and questioning why, in this day and age, he still has to waste time clearing out the clutter in his email.  
  
And then he finds a message from Spock.  
  
Oh great. Why even read this? Here are the contents—Spock will have to get the last word and this will be a more detailed analysis of how Jim does everything wrong and should be booted off this ship at the first opportunity. And hooray, the entire Federation will be saved! Ice cream will be served at dawn.  
  
Jim is already plenty mad at Spock. And the video cameras do not need more court martialing fodder.  
  
He opens the message anyway, because his hands suck and don’t listen to him, ever.  
  
 _Captain:_  
  
 _Regarding the events of last evening, at 19:34 hours, I would like to assure you that I will not seek legal action against yourself in the context of the physical assault you inflicted upon me. As I am leaving the ship, it would be redundant and pointless._  
  
 _Spock_  
  
Jim stares at this for a while, unsure as to whether this makes him want to throttle Spock tons more, or marginally less. _Hey, Captain, you totally went ape shit and I could get you into a ton of trouble with Starfleet command, but I won’t because I won the argument anyway? ___It’s hitting somewhere between deeply provoking and… almost apologetic?  
  
It’s a very shaky ‘almost’. But Jim can kind of see how this message might have been intended as a bridge-building exercise. Spock’s (deeply stunted) way of saying, I’m still mad, but I’m not going to turn this into an even worse shit storm because I maybe feel a little bit bad about it too.  
  
Jim composes a few replies, and finally settles on the one he deems least likely to end in Spock having to shoot Jim before he transfers ships.  
  
 _Received your message. Wanted to let you know that I’m not going to call you out on any shit about unprofessional conduct or you being emotionally compromised or whatever. So if you’re worried about that, don’t be._  
  
He sends it, satisfied with his professional demeanor and not calling Spock names and stuff.  
  
He keeps his PADD by him for the rest of the night, leaping at it whenever it makes a noise.  
  
Spock doesn’t message him back.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh, this is kind of annoying. I'm about to switch over to end of chapter comments, so hopefully they will piss me off less They're bleeding into the actual chapters, aren't they? Bugger and bother.  
> Anyway, you know how I said there'd be an update...? : D  
> So, to address two groups of people:  
> To our Poor Jim side of the argument: Yes, I totally sympathize with him. There is nothing quite as craptacular as being hit where it hurts, especially by the ones you love. Even so. Sulking and self-pity do not help. 90% of the time, letting it go is the better alternative. Life lesson, people.  
> To our Let's Beat Spock Up Behind the Gym side of the argument: Nope. I like Spock. He was a bit of bastard, but all things considered, and he's certainly got some growing up to do, but people lash out. And it's also preeeeetty damn unlikely he knew exactly how hard that would hit Jim. Spock was basically just looking for a fight, and he got a lucky hit. No, I am not beating Spock up behind the gym. I'm beating him up with plot  
> And that's about all I have to say on the matter. Enjoy; this conflict will be expanded on and continued in later chapters. Dunno when the next update is, because I have no prewrites left. Aaaaaand, there was this outline... for the entire story... That I apparently deleted and have forgotten half of... Hahaha... T_T Oh god dammit.

After the second day on the bridge, Sulu actually calls Jim aside. “Look, I know you’re mad—“  
  
“What?” Jim says, because he’d expected this to be about fencing. He backpedals quickly, “No, come on man, let’s not talk about this—“  
  
“He’s your friend, Jim,” Sulu says firmly. “You’re going to regret it if you let it end like this.”  
  
Okay, Jim can maybe see Sulu’s point, since today the professionalism degraded into Spock not saying anything to Jim at all and Jim not saying anything back because he refused to be the first one to break down. Instead he possibly directed his inquiries about scientific findings to Uhura, who Jim may or may not be planning on hiding from for the next few days, considering the steadily more murderous looks she was sending his way towards the end of shift.  
  
Jim feels his jaw sort of lock anyway. “I tried to be his friend,” he snaps. “Look how well that turned out.”  
  
Sulu just gives him a pained sort of look. “He’s a pain in the ass,” he says.  
  
Jim, against all odds, feels the need to get defensive on Spock’s behalf. He stamps that idiotic impulse into the dirt, but he thinks Sulu saw it anyway.  
  
“It’s not going to be the same ship without him,” Sulu says, and sounds a little sad about it.  
  
No, it won’t.

\----

It’s about 23:00 hours before Jim manages to hit send.  
  
The message reads:  
  
 _Hey, Spock. Forgot to ask your opinion on the orbital anomaly noted today on Ecalpus-II’s moon. I forget the name of it, but you know the one._ (Jim had carefully deleted the following rant about how Vulcans always knew better than humans and were chronically smarmy bastards about it, because he felt that it didn’t add that much.)  
  
 _Sorry I’m sending this so late. Go back to sleep if you feel like answering._  
  
 _And if you need me to write up a recommendation so it doesn’t look like I’m kicking you off the ship, let me know._  
  
Jim flinches when the PADD pings about two minutes afterwards and nearly falls off the bed. When he picks the PADD up, he has a new message from Spock, which he fumbles open, while steadily cursing and shaking out the hand he fell on.  
  
 _Captain:_  
  
 _The moon Andrometus-XI’s orbital anomalies were most likely caused by magnetic interference from the moon Illida-IV. Lieutenant Uhura’s suggestion of asteroid collision was, while creative, unfounded after close examination of the scientific readings._  
  
 _Furthermore, as a Vulcan, I do not condone lies in any form and do not require your recommendation._  
  
 _Spock_  
  
Jim spends a disproportionate amount of time feeling annoyed that Spock not only remembers the names of random ass hunks of rock orbiting a random ass dead planet, but also knew how to spell their names correctly (which Jim looked up just in case, and refuses to be judged for). He then allows himself to feel just the tiniest bit hurt that Spock basically gave him a big old Vulcan fuck you for the offer of a recommendation.  
  
And what’s all that shit about lying, too? Does he not get that for the past year Jim has been doing everything humanly possible to get Spock to like him? He wasn’t just doing that for his own fucking amusement. He…  
  
Well, until now, he’s been hard pressed to find shit he doesn’t like about Spock. He at least still respects him, even if Spock is kind of a bastard.  
  
 _Fuck you, Spock,_ he types angrily into his PADD. _You are full of shit. I’m writing you a recommendation whether you like it or not. AND I’m sending it to the entire command_ (this part he deletes on the grounds that the last time he hacked the admiralty’s private channels, Pike threatened to have him thrown in Andorian prison).  
  
 _Just because I’m human doesn’t mean that I’m an idiot. You’re a capable officer and that’s not a lie, so get off your high horse._  
  
 _Good luck wherever it is you’re headed._  
  
 _Ha,_ Jim thinks maliciously, _I did just throw in some bitchy politeness, didn’t I?_ Good. It certainly bites when Spock does it to him, so turnabout is fair play. Jim is clearly the more mature of them. Just look at his usage of pointless niceties.  
  
He throws his PADD at the pillow and resolves not to look at it anymore.  
  
In about ten minutes, there’s another noise signaling a new message. Jim opens it immediately.  
  
 _Captain:_  
  
 _You misunderstand. I am aware of my superior candidacy for any position I seek. I have my choice among the starships in this fleet. I have multiple recommendations already, and do not require an additional one from you, regardless._  
  
 _However, I would not taint my record by adding a recommendation written for mendacious reasons, or written to upset a correct deduction of events that have transpired. I again request you add no such document._  
  
 _Spock_  
  
Jim spends about fifteen minutes gaping at that one. He then looks over their message history just to decipher Spock’s cryptic Vulcan-ness.  
  
What he finds nearly ends up with him denting the PADD screen as he types his return message.  
  
 _Spock. I’m not the one kicking you off this ship. You decided to leave all on your own, so don’t blame me. You shithead._  
  
Spock doesn’t reply. Jim figures that’s for the best. He kind of wants to curse Spock out and he’s not good at resisting temptation.

\----

Nearly half the shift passes in a stony, unproductive silence because the entire crew has gone mute and easily terrified. Jim keeps having to jerk his eyes back front because he’s reflexively turning to glare at Spock. Spock’s shoulders look tense enough to slice bread. Uhura keeps cracking her knuckles for unknown reasons, and Checkov has shrunk down in his chair like it will protect him from whatever is going on behind him.  
  
And then Spock suddenly says, “Magnetic field detected ahead.”  
  
Jim’s eyes snap back to the front. “Onscreen.” And there is suddenly some kind of purple monstrosity that looks like a force field dipped in grape jelly. Another day in the bold new territory of what the holy fuck.  
  
“Origin?” Jim demands (while feeling admittedly hungry for grapes).  
  
“Indeterminate,” Spock replies. “It appears to be mobile, and headed at this ship.”  
  
And then Jim swears and he’s just shouting orders about evasive maneuvers (which totally don’t work) and phaser fire (which totally do, after Spock points out areas of electromagnetic neutrality) and they bust through the Purple Menace mostly intact, with Scotty sobbing into Jim’s comm link about what they have done to his engines and how much, exactly, he hates them all right now.  
  
“Scan for debris,” Jim tells Spock absently. Spock nods back automatically.  
  
People start talking again, once the crisis is over. They recover bits of mobile force field-producing shrapnel for examination, and Jim hears the geeky pleasure in the scientist-in-charge’s voice. “Want to head down and take a look?” Jim asks Spock automatically.  
  
Before remembering that he’s mad at Spock and doesn’t really want to help him indulge his inner geek. He tries to make up for this with a scowl, but Spock isn’t looking at him.  
  
His shoulders are relaxed, though. “Negative, Captain,” Spock says. “I will carry out the rest of my shift.”  
  
It rings with a little more emphasis than Spock maybe meant for it to.  
  
 _This is our last shift together,_ Jim realizes. _Maybe forever. Probably forever._  
  
And then, _Am I even going to see him again? What if he goes back to New Vulcan and does all that Vulcan stuff there and—?_  
  
Shit, his throat is closing. Jim swallows hard and glues his eyes to the viewscreen, but he’s very aware of Spock’s presence behind him. Silent and vital and fuck, Jim’s had his time to be mad. He’s not mad anymore. It just hurts.  
  
 _I don’t want you to go,_ Jim thinks hard. _I don’t want you to go, haven’t I made that clear? If you’re so fricking awesome, Spock—_  
  
(And he is.)  
  
 _—pick up on it. Stay here. Even if we’re only talking when something is trying to kill us, even if you want to hate me for good, stay here. Stay for Uhura, stay for the_ Enterprise _, just stay, dammit._  
  
 _Stay for me. Fuck, I don’t even know if I can do this without you._  
  
“The path ahead appears clear, Captain,” Spock says without any inflection.  
  
“Full speed ahead, Mr. Sulu,” Jim says hoarsely.

\----

When he gets back to his rooms, he makes himself actually look over Spock’s resignation and transfer requests. He almost manages to approve them too.  
  
He notices that he has a message from Spock. He doesn’t want to read it, but he eventually makes himself on the grounds that pretending that time has not passed probably won’t fool Spock into staying for another week.  
  
 _Captain:_  
  
 _I have considered your offer and decided that your recommendation would be appreciated._  
  
 _Spock_  
  
Jim bites his lip and closes the message. He opens it a few more times, just to continue feeling like he’s been mule-kicked in the stomach.  
And then he writes the recommendation.  
  
As soon as he files it, there’s a ping from his PADD and he has another message from Spock.  
  
 _Captain:_  
  
 _I have read the recommendation you composed. It is satisfactory._  
  
Because Spock would totally nitpick about Jim’s writing skills right now. Jim rolls his eyes and it feels almost normal. Like he’s not getting fed through that force field personally, and wanting to hack off his own limbs.  
  
 _I find certain elements curious, however. For instance, your emphasis on bravery, which I did not anticipate as one of your focal points. Additionally, you cited my actions on Tellaro-IV as exemplary, which I further did not anticipate. Please explain._  
  
 _Spock_  
  
Why does Spock suddenly feel like his middle school English teacher?  
  
Jim shakes his head. “Only you,” he says to his empty room, and starts typing.  
  
 _I didn’t break any copyright laws, if that’s what you’re asking. I wrote it myself. Ergo; of course it’s satisfactory._  
  
Because Jim totally doesn’t need Spock to tell him this shit. He is not a preteen girl.  
  
 _Anyway. The captain of the_ Emblem _is really into the word bravery. Seriously. Go read his recs and commendations for his crew. It’s on basically every line._  
  
Which it is. Jim had rolled his eyes through most of them, well-appraised of the inherent inferiority of any crew versus his own crew. The _Emblem’s_ Officer Kulcello owned a bunch of dinosaur pirates with a makeshift wave gun? Yeah, well last Wednesday, Officer Isiira stopped a Klingon bomb from detonating an entire world with a hairclip and some nail polish remover—without anybody breaking the Prime Directive. The _Emblem_ has one of the best navigators in the fleet? So what? Jim would pit him against Checkov any day.  
  
So there.  
  
Clearly, the _Emblem_ does not **deserve** Spock. Spock is worth that entire crew squared, and he’ll probably take over as captain in two years because Captain Multoth is not awe-inspiringly brilliant, and Jim bets _he’s_ never saved an entire world by piloting unknown future technology into a giant enemy spaceship that eats planets.  
  
He doesn’t write about that, though. He types automatically.  
  
 _So I figured since they’re your first choice, I’d make you sound like their kind of Vulcan. And I didn’t lie or anything._  
  
 _I just thought of Tellaro-IV. There’s no special meaning or anything._

\----

Spock replies,  
  
 _Captain:_  
  
 _Why have you researched the_ Emblem?  
  
 _Additionally, please clarify your reasoning about Tellaro-IV._  
  
 _Spock_

\----

_Oh, stuff it,_ Jim writes back. _I’m not going to stalk you across the universe, if that’s what you’re thinking._  
  
(Except Jim is kind of totally planning to do this).  
  
 _I’m telling you, there’s nothing special about Tellaro-IV. It was completely random._  
  
Except Spock doesn’t seem to buy that Jim’s choice of anecdote wasn’t some carefully crafted attempt at something (Jim has forever sworn off of trying to read Spock’s mind) and he keeps badgering Jim about it. It would be deeply annoying, because it’s now 23:45 hours and Jim should be sleeping, but he’s grinning against the heel of his hand.  
  
Because after this Spock won’t even be on the bridge and Jim really will have to approve his requests, and even if he spends the whole thing fending off Spock’s increasingly bitchy demands to know what Jim is planning, he just doesn’t want to stop talking.  
  
 _Spock,_ he finally writes, _Tellaro-IV is a planet where we did stuff, not some masterfully concealed code for ‘Vulcans suck’. Let it go._  
  
And then, on a whim, he writes, _Do you want to play chess one last time?_  
  
He proceeds to spend half a minute having a panicked heart attack about what he just sent and why exactly it seemed like a good idea to hit the send button. It wasn’t a good idea. It was a terrible idea.  
  
Spock proves it by writing back, _I am very busy at this time._  
  
Jim figures he’s talking about packing all his bags and setting his affairs in order. Jim ends up setting down the PADD and taking a few deep breaths.  
  
And then, because he refuses to let their last interactions involve him coming off as utterly pathetic, he writes back,  
  
 _Yeah, no, I get it. Just asking. Because I’m kind of wondering why we’re even messaging each other. Just felt like it would be easier to have this conversation in private, if we were going to keep talking._  
  
 _So I’m distracting you. I’ll let you get back to your stuff._  
  
And this time he writes it not as an attempt to needle his First, but as something a lot more sincere.  
  
 _Good luck, Spock. You’ve been the best First Officer I’ve ever had._  
  
Ha ha, funny joke. Right? Because he’s never had another First!  
  
Because the alternative is saying that Spock has been the best thing in his life up until this moment.  
  
Jim sends the message and takes a deep breath. Then he approves Spock’s requests, sets down the PADD, and feels like his world is ending.  
  
And Spock is gone.

A full five minutes later, he gets a new message.  
  
 _Captain:_  
  
 _I do not wish to leave this ship._  
  
 _Spock_

\----

Jim stares at the message, eyes getting progressively wider, heart vaulting into his throat and _yes, yes, yes,_ his hands clench the sheets so hard they’re shaking. He just has to picture getting out of the turbolift tomorrow morning and Spock’s dark eyes, his nod, his voice—  
  
“Fucking tell me that _sooner!_ ” Jim bellows at the PADD and then closes out the whole messaging system to hack the Starfleet message channels so fast he’s all but breaking his fingers to do it. He blasts Spock’s damn requests right out of existence, erases their every trace from the network, and then his PADD pings again and he screams at the ceiling with a combination of frustration and terror and just _please, universe, please let me fucking do this._  
  
And it’s Spock.  
  
And he writes:  
  
 _Captain:_  
  
 _It is illegal to hack Starfleet message channels when a simple communication of messaging error would suffice. As I have already sent this message, you are likely to be incriminated._  
  
 _Spock_

\----

Spock looks surprised when the captain turns up on his doorstep in the dead of night, glowering. There are about fifteen ensigns clustered throughout the hallway, transfixed at the possibility of more upper echelon violence. Spock tenses too, and Jim tells him—in person, dammit, because sending notes is pathetic—“Then file a formal complaint.”  
  
Spock’s eyebrow goes up.  
  
Oh god, it’s been forever since Jim has seen that. It makes him want to weep. It makes him want to throw his arms around Spock and squeeze him until he gets the crap punched out of him because he almost let Spock go. How wrong is that? And Jim laughs, kind of helplessly, as Spock informs him, “I do not wish to.”  
  
Jim has finished hacking Spock’s message out of the network too, so it’s all good when he shoves his PADD at Spock’s chest. “Great,” he says to the befuddled Vulcan. “See you on the bridge at 06:00.”  
  
Jim thinks he maybe hears one of the ensigns gasp and another one hiss, “yes!”  
  
He’s also grinning like an idiot, like he’s completely lovestruck, and he’s fine with it right now.  
  
“Captain, you have displaced what appears to be a personal belonging,” Spock observes, who himself appears to be deciding whether or not to chalk it up to illogical human stuff.  
  
“Yeah,” Jim mutters, already heading down the hall. He casts a hand up to wave at his— _his!_ —befuddled Vulcan, “Because I’m actually getting some sleep tonight and you write too damn much.”


	9. Chapter 9

So, Spock staying on the _Enterprise_? Amazing. Beyond amazing. Jim goes and tells Bones pretty much first thing in the morning because he wakes up too early, vibrating with an energy that encourages him to sing really loudly in the shower and then hug something with koala-like desperation. Since Spock is definitely out, Jim goes and finds Bones, who hears his news and then kicks him out of sick bay because Jim is “too damn excitable for this hour of the morning.”  
  
Pfft, he’s just jealous.  
  
And then Jim goes to one of the rec rooms and spends an hour cheerfully kicking his crew’s asses in hand-to-hand. He demands a high-five from Sulu (who is always up this early, apparently) and refuses to explain why, leaving it up to Sulu to figure out when they hit the bridge—  
  
—and Spock is already there.  
  
 _Stop that,_ Jim tells himself, because he’s about to hurt himself with all this grinning. _Spock is always early._  
  
His brain responds by purring the word _always_ gleefully. Jim gives up. Hey, at least he’s not alone; practically everyone else on the bridge has forgotten what dignity is too. Sulu doesn’t seem to remember where he was walking to and is having some kind of eyebrow conversation with Uhura. Isiira is frantically keying gossip into her PADD. Chekov is looking at Jim like having one more Vulcan aboard the ship deserves a prize, possibly an entire planet.  
  
Jim does not deserve an _entire_ planet.  
  
Spock is the last person to actually look away from his station and for a moment Jim’s brain goes haywire and fires a sequence of things he might be doing wrong, things that could make Spock change his mind. It’s only pathetic if he acts on them, though, and Spock just gives Jim this nod.  
  
It’s hilariously stiff. Like he’s concerned his head will fall off if he bends his neck too much. _Aww, he’s flustered,_ goes the part of Jim’s brain that he’d conveniently forgotten about during all this fighting.  
  
 _Oh right,_ Jim thinks. _Stupid fucking crushes. Wow, cool of you to remind me._  
  
Which of course means that he’s now embarrassed, so between this and Spock developing sudden onset throat problems (and the rest of the crew acting radiating the kind of enthusiasm that is usually accompanied by a musical number; Jim is developing a degree of concern about Starfleet’s psych evals), it’s time to just admit that this ship is piloted by individuals with the collective emotional maturity of Jim’s kindergarten class.  
  
Sulu punches him in the shoulder as they head over to their respective seats. Jim times his collapse into the captain’s chair with Spock’s swiveling back around to the science station. He spends a moment grinning at the ceiling.  
  
Let’s hear it. Who saved the day? Haha, not Scotty.  
  
Of course, the first time Spock actually speaks to him—some kind of scientific anomaly has been registered—Jim almost falls out of his chair. He’s not jumpy, though. He’s, uh, highly alert.  
  
Spock’s face goes almost entirely blank. He waits silently as the captain inches back into his seat, and when Jim is once more upright, Spock just picks up his report where he left off. Jim hears about half of it, nods vigorously, and once Spock has faced his science station again, Jim looks it up the rest of the report on his PADD. Oh, okay, cool… it’s not shooting at them. That works out in their favor.  
  
(Jim’s ears are burning a little bit.)  
  
So okay, there is the possibility that they’re going to have to work a little bit to get things back the way they were before.

\----

You know, just once it would be nice if Jim came to an emotional revelation— _wow, so agreeing to spend a few more years sitting in the same room together_ didn’t _automatically fix everything?_ —and then began to actually work on getting Spock to quit twitching every time Jim shifted in his chair. Just once, he’d like these kinds of problems to not be accompanied by phaser fire, Uhura’s business face, or Starfleet’s unique capacity for sadism.  
  
It’s like the universe is trying to tell him that he should just quit while he was ahead, which was such _bullshit._ Like Jim couldn’t handle patching up a friendship. He had friends! He had tons of friends.  
  
Granted, the only relationship Jim has successfully maintained for longer than five years is the one he has with Bones (the one with about a 70% alcohol content).  
  
Also granted, Jim has never exactly ‘patched up’ any kind of issue that involves emotions beyond Faces I Would Like to Punch. He’s a fan of classic strategies, like figuring out exactly how much baggage can be swept under the rug, and how quickly this can be accomplished with two bottles of whiskey and a tattoo parlor—additionally granted, Spock does not drink. Hm.  
  
But you know what? Fuck every single aspect of what the universe thinks. Jim is willing to do whatever it takes to un-fuck their friendship. If he doesn’t succeed, he’ll try it again with his phaser. If that doesn’t work, there’s always tap shoes. He’s determined. Klingon Warbirds Headed for Earth kind of determined; determined in the way that is going to end in victory or his cold, dead body.  
  
But nope, the universe rewards deep thoughts by Jim getting saddled with what has got to be the most annoying mission of his career. He’s not sure what he’s done to deserve this. Maybe Jim didn’t clean his hacking trail as well as he thought? Pike keeps sending him passive aggressive messages about how fertilizer helps plants to grow or some shit.  
  
The _Enterprise_ has been roped into a so-called merchant expedition. Jim liked to think of it as the complete destruction of His faith in the goodness of the universe, part II. The first part was Nero. The interlude between acts was Admiral Marcus.  
  
The death knell of Jim’s patience has a name, and it’s Captain Intha.  
  
(And his menagerie of exotic animals, but mostly it’s Captain Intha.)  
  
On the surface, see, Captain Intha is your average Federation citizen. Maybe a little more chitinous and boasting a few more antennae than Jim is used to, but he’s not about to start discriminating now. He knows he’s dealing with a merchant who needs a large ship to transport himself and his flock of—okay, the report calls them _arn-tei_ , but that’s entirely too dignified; Jim calls them fuzzbunnies and likes to see who twitches about this first—to his border planet destination. Nothing too complicated. There are no known enemies in the area, no anomalies, and Captain Intha’s record is squeaky clean in a way that sets Jim’s repeat offender teeth on edge.  
  
 _Oh hey_ , thought Jim, naïve soul that he had been a few days ago, _This looks easy. I bet I’ll have plenty of time to torment Spock into being my friend again._  
  
Uh-huh. The first thing Captain Intha did when he boarded the _Enterprise_ was sniff and make a remark about how sanitation protocols just weren’t what they used to be.  
  
 _Okay,_ thought Jim. _I’m not going to like you._  
  
The second thing their guest did was start questioning the weapons systems on the bridge—right in front of Scotty.  
  
Just a reminder: Intha commanded a mercantile vessel. Which he blew up. The circumstances around how Intha busted his own ship are vague enough that Jim was willing to cut him some slack at first—but that was before Jim actually met him. Right now, he’s pretty sure the ship blew itself up just to get away from the sound of the captain’s voice.  
  
“Are you very sure you wish to continue at this pace?” Captain Intha says from Jim’s right. He’s posted himself directly behind Jim since 08:00, possibly in an effort to give Jim a crick in his neck. His voice prompts Jim to take a fortifying breath, and aims his gaze at the back of Chekov’s head. His navigator’s shoulders have been inching up towards his ears all morning. Their current V shape is oddly comforting. “It occurs to me that we might shave as much as ten hours off this flight if you would increase your speed up to 3.45, instead of this.” A measured pause follows. “…Modest pace.”  
  
As Jim aims his sunniest smile towards the merchant, he hears Chekov saying some things in Russian. Jim can understand enough of it to wince. “I’m sure your calculations are very accurate, Captain, but given our limited fuel supply, it’s better to conserve engine power.” Intha clicks his mandibles at Jim. He does that a lot. Jim isn’t sure whether his guest is threatening to eat him.  
  
“Oh,” the alien says. “Well, forgive me. Aboard my ship, we always make sure to supply ourselves to execute our missions with the greatest efficiency.”  
  
Fascinating.  
  
“Let me express my sympathies once again,” Jim says as nicely as he can manage— _no, come on, you sound like you’re about to punch someone. This is not a bar; be professional._ “For the loss of your ship.” _The one where, you know, you **blew out your engines.**_  
  
Captain Intha lumbers forward to peer over Sulu’s shoulder and making bug noises. Uhura gives Jim this look that is entirely too pitying for physical torture not to have gotten involved.  
  
“Helmsman,” the alien addresses Sulu. “Are you quite sure you wish to manually pilot such a valuable ship through an asteroid belt?”  
  
Yeah, okay, Jim is retracting his opinion. This qualifies as physical torture.  
  
More Russian from Chekov. Jim lets his head dangle for a moment. Then he’s up and talking loudly to distract everyone from what the crazy bug man just said. Intha clicks at Jim some more (Jim is now positive that’s not a friendly sound), but allows himself to be steered away from the helmsman, who Jim hopes won’t do anything stupid, like start making them barrel roll between deadly chunks of rock. Or punch their escort mission in the face.  
  
“I can promise you, we know what we’re doing,” Jim assures Intha. “Your crew, and your cargo are in safe hands. We’re all absolutely committed to getting you to your destination” _and off my ship_ “as quickly and efficiently as possible. So there’s really no need for you to worry about our methods. Starfleet wouldn’t have assigned us to you if we weren’t capable of handing this.”  
  
The last part is bullshit. Starfleet has terrible judgment. Just reading over the specs of failed missions (something that is not strictly legal, but if Starfleet wants Jim to stop hacking their channels, they’re going to have to invest in better security), has firmly instilled a deep skepticism in Jim for anything Starfleet directs, ever. Not that he’d turn a mission down, and there’s nothing his crew couldn’t handle any one of those missions backwards and blindfolded (obviously), but he’s sure as shit not going into anything without several backup plans, a couple of harebrained schemes, and Spock’s logic hip-checking him every step of the way.  
  
Case in point, Starfleet said this mission was easy. Starfleet lies.  
  
Jim would like a little applause at the moment. Was that not the most diplomatic kiss-off you’ve ever heard in your lives? He didn’t threaten to shoot anyone. He’s deeply proud of himself for a moment.  
  
Then Intha goes, “Well, I suppose a mission of this simplicity can be trusted to the young. However, I was under the impression that at the very least, youth invited greater speed, not less.”  
  
Jim’s smile doesn’t waver. He’s pretty damned used to having shit talked about him for his age, and it doesn’t really matter if it comes from a burly admiral or a green space bug. The correct response is always to smile, prove them wrong, and be as much of a smart-ass about it as you feasibly can.  
  
Spock clears his throat quietly. This does, admittedly, prevent Jim from saying the first thing that came to mind, which is probably for the best. Jim doesn’t think his suggestion is anatomically possible for any species in this room and he’s supposed to be setting an example. Right.  
  
Instead he says (and barely sounds strained at all, score), “Captain, we have been flying this ship for several years now. My helmsman and navigator know this ship well, and I’m sure you don’t have time for such paltry concerns. We know far less about the creatures you brought aboard, though. Maybe you should check on your cargo and make sure that everything is being carried out to your specifications…”  
  
Intha’s antennae shoot straight up.  
  
Ooh boy, Jim can already see the dirty looks his science officers will be throwing him tomorrow. He’s going to give them all an extra day or two on their shore leave allotments for this.  
  
They’ll need it.  
  
But he is pretty sure the _Enterprise_ just did a barrel roll and maybe if they just bounce Captain Intha from department to department like a bureaucratic game of ping-pong, everyone will finish this mission sane and without sanctions.  
  
Anyway, it works. Intha gets the hell off his bridge in a sequence of worried rustling and clicking at the presumed incompetence of Spock’s personally chosen science staff. Jim sinks back into his chair and makes faces at the ceiling. The Enterprise is smoothing out of another barrel roll. Jim leans forward enough to kick the back of Sulu’s chair, which makes Chekov snort.  
  
Everyone on the bridge is so professional it hurts.  
  
He jumps a little when Uhura suddenly shows up next to him to congratulate him on how, “That was very well put, Captain. I think we all learned something from how you handled that situation.”  
  
Jim looks up at her, too delighted by the display of sarcasm to care where it’s coming from. “Is that your professional opinion, lieutenant, or should I pick out a nice restaurant for us?”  
  
Uhura grins wickedly back. “Don’t let Captain Intha get to you too much, or you’ll let more slip. ‘Paltry,’ huh, interesting word choice.”  
  
Okay. Point to Uhura.  
  
Jim drops a hand over his eyes and groans. Oh yeah, that’s one of those words that Jim usually pretends not to know. Sure, the Bridge crew is a tight knit bunch and given that Jim knows that Zir wears holographic underwear, they probably have also guessed that Jim is smarter than he likes to let on.  
  
But he is pretty pissed that he let _Intha_ goad it out of him. Fuck. At least he got rid of the merchant in the process, though?  
  
Double fuck, Spock is giving him a look. _I didn’t know you knew that word,_ say Spock’s eyes. Jim irritably resists the urge to start using the word ‘like’ three times a sentence. He ends up grumbling something that involves the word ‘sanctimonious’ and Spock’s eyebrows vaulting upwards, and decides to just stop talking. You know what sounds like a good idea right now? Harassing Bones.  
  
A part of him probably senses how much worse this is about to get, and Jim will take his therapy where he can, thanks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love how irritated I get when I can't remember if I titled chapters or not and I'm all aggressively grouchy about having to spend five minutes going back and checking. The modern age does wonders for my patience.
> 
> If this sucks, uh, blame the neighborhood kids. They think it's funny to be noisy right outside my window. I ran away to the parking lot. They followed me. They are evil. Evil, evil, soccer-playing midgets.
> 
> Anyway, this is almost entirely written for Plyushka, who for some reason refused to let me abandon this fic and go howling into the night. Plyushka is awesome and that is all you need to know. Good night.


	10. Chapter 10

                Jim is gritting his teeth so hard they feel liable to explode out of his jaw.

                “I considered the wisdom of your words, Captain,” says Intha, once again on the Bridge, once again stationed directly behind Jim like it wants to see how many times it can make him twitch. “The safety of my cargo is tantamount. You were exactly right.”

                “I see,” Jim says, because he’s not supposed to curse at their guests.

                “So I thought to myself, ‘why sacrifice one priority for another?’ There is no reason why I cannot oversee both the operation of this vessel and the well-being of my cargo.”

                There are now about fifty alien lifeforms on the Bridge. And because these are Level 1, harmless fluffballs, not a damn protocol to put a stop to it.

                He could still pull rank, of course, but Jim’s got this promise with himself that he’s not going to start citing people on professionalism until he’s out of his mind with senility. Besides, Chekov has about eight of the creatures in his lap and is cooing at them. Even Spock has a few gently purring fuzzbunnies distributed around his science station. Jim is the only person who does not have _arn-tei_ climbing all over him, and he’s at a loss to explain why. Maybe he’s just not a cat person. Or maybe he doesn’t appreciate suddenly having his bridge overrun by exotic wildlife—call him paranoid, but he can envision multiple scenarios in which this becomes a _problem_.

                It might also have to do with the way smug is radiating off of Intha in waves.

                “They seem quite happy here, in spite of the disorder,” the alien says. And then, to Sulu, “Helmsman, you are sacrificing speed by avoiding the planet’s gravitational field, instead of flying straight through. Are you aware of this?”

                Maybe Jim could set his phaser to stun and then just pretend it was a misfire. He’s not really considering this so much as dreaming of it wistfully.

                “Captain, it comes to my attention that you do not often involve yourself with the management of your crew’s actions,” says Intha as Jim pastes on his best I Don’t Give a Fuck Smile. “Perhaps this is an area of your command that could use some correction.”  

                Jim is pretty sure that Intha just suggested he start telling his crew how to do their jobs.

                His temper comes swaggering to the forefront of his mind on their behalf, but no one else is getting irritated. Jim bites down on his tongue and just keeps his smile up. His crew is too preoccupied with the _acn-tei_ to get angry about the merchant’s inability to shut up. How nice for them.

                “I’ll take your advice into account,” says Jim, and begins to compose a strongly-worded message to Pike through one of his coding subroutines. He already knows Intha is, among other things, reading his PADD over his shoulder. On the surface, he’s formulating a bland data report; once it’s fed through the decryption key that adjusts all the emails Jim labels as ‘high risk’, his careful wording is reconstructed according to its actual meaning.

                He calls Pike an old bastard a lot. Captain Intha asks if this is really the time to be specifying ration protocols.

                Such a paltry matter.

                               

                By day three, Jim is climbing the walls. He feels like he’s trapped in a box with latrine stench, and no matter what he does or how hard he pretends not to give a shit, it will not go away. Captain Intha just gets to him. It’s irritating to discover how easy Intha takes apart all of Jim’s carefully crafted and honed Dealing with Jackasses skills. He’s great with Starfleet, with ambassadors, and at least okay enough with Spock to keep him on the ship (Spock is more of an honorary jackass, though; he only pulls shit on alternate Wednesdays or something), but this prick has Jim consistently worried that he’s about to slip up and act like he never got his commission. I.e., solve problems in a way that will end with his court martialing.

                It doesn’t help that Jim has pretty much zero options of stress relief left open. Spock still hasn’t agreed to any chess matches, Bones is dealing with a hundred imaginary crises (seriously, they’re six inch fuzzbunnies, and Jim really doubts they’re liable to explode if not constantly monitored) and has no time for anything. Sulu and Cupcake are both too busy with the aforementioned fuzzbunnies to come sparring with Jim.

                Yeah, okay, _fine_. There you go. The reason Jim is pissed off is because everybody is holding hands and braiding each other’s fuzzbunnies. It’s like Jim is the only person still wanting to push Captain Intha out the nearest airlock! It’s _wrong_ , is what it is. And if one more person suggests Jim spend some time with an _arn-tei_ to “get less tense” Jim is going to go through a step-by-step detailing of ‘tense’ with his boot and one of the goddamned fuzzbunnies.

                He doesn’t like them.

                They are not cute.

                And they do not in any way make up for Captain Intha’s incessant ability to be an asshole.

                Continuing in the general direction of Jim enjoying every aspect of his life, annoying little disturbances keep cropping up throughout the ship. Every time a blinky light on the control panel so much as misses a beat, Captain Intha is right there to make a nuisance of himself. Oh, did crew members on deck five not show up for their shifts dead on time? Good god, what is the captain thinking? Did his hairballs somehow wind up in engineering contrary to outdated fire hazard regulations? Tut tut.

                Pike keeps sending Jim messages along the lines of, Would you have preferred Andorian prison?

                Which Jim laughs off because hmmm let him think about it YES he would. At least in prison he’d have something to do other than having to passive aggressively smile his way through conversations with someone who isn’t even qualified to be giving him this level of shit. Intha captains a mercantile vessel, he’s never been in Starfleet, and where does Jim have written on him, ‘No really, I don’t get enough of this from my superiors; please come make my life harder.’

                Recently Intha had been trying to rally for adjustment of the environmental controls, because apparently _arn-tei_ develop most optimally in 18 degrees Centigrade, instead of the standard 23. They flourish under moderately higher humidity. They prefer low lighting.

                All Jim wants from life right now is a reason to shoot something.

                (Also, for Spock to stop liking the fuzzbunnies more than him. But he is able to recognize when he’s full of shit, okay, so he’s not even involving this in the discussion).

                And then Intha starts actively ambushing him.

                Jim is leaving the rec room. He’s just morosely beaten everyone in there at chess, doesn’t feel even a little bit better, and when he steps outside, the first thing that comes to mind is that maybe he can outrun Intha.

                He’s not even on shift. This isn’t fair.

                _Smile, dammit_. “Captain,” Jim greets.

                “I really must insist,” Intha says, which lets Jim know right off the back that he’s not going to like this conversation. Jim puts his hands behind his back, away from his phaser. “I have pointed out numerous areas for improvement of the operation of this vessel. I feel that I am not being heard.”

                Oh, he’s being heard alright. Unfortunately.

                Jim breathes. “Captain, might I remind you that you yourself approved our projected date of arrival?” Intha clicks its mandibles and waves feelers at Jim like it would like to physically stop his mouth from moving. Jim can empathize. He pats the merchant’s shoulder and tries not to be a dick. “Look, I know that this ship isn’t run the way you like, but we’re at the halfway mark, and we’re going to arrive on time.” _And in one piece_ , Jim adds silently. It’s not like Intha’s suggestions are outright suicidal, but as much as Starfleet seems to think Jim has a thirst for all things harebrained and dangerous, he draws a firm line between ‘thinking inside the box is about to get our asses killed’ and deferring to protocol because it’s there for a reason.

                Like maybe not BLOWING UP YOUR ENGINES.

                If there were enemies lurking in this airspace somewhere, or if the _arn-tei_ were genuinely a sensitive, delicate species (which they are not; Jim saw Scotty drop one down a flight of stairs the other day and it was perfectly fine), Jim might understand Intha’s ongoing quest to be a pain in his ass. But there is no one out here, the _arn-tei_ are vastly hardier than Jim’s patience, and Intha is feeding him bullshit of the highest order.

                “I would like to protest,” says the captain.

                Jim takes a breath through the teeth he’s using to smile and offers, “There are probably official channels for that, if you take a look.”

                There’s a lot of unhappy mandible clicking at this point, and no more words. Jim waits for a moment and then figures that if he’s not on-shift, he’s not actually obligated to stand here and let Intha click insultingly at him. “If that’s all,” Jim says, “I’m just going to go.”

                “You are making a mistake,” the alien says, and whoa, okay. _That_ was not a nice tone of voice.

                Jim actually turns back around to look at it, neck prickling. That is the kind of thing that gets said by jealous exes and heavily-armed people who want to blow you up. Call him paranoid but, alarms are firing. Intha stalks away without shooting him, but the prickling feeling won’t go away.

                …Huh.  So that was... unsettling.

               

                It is day four of the escort mission (Invasion of the Fuzzbunnies, Jim has been calling it), and Intha has taken a break from driving Jim up the wall. It’s nowhere on the Bridge for once, and Jim feels like he can breathe. He celebrates by getting putting some antigravity components into a bouncy ball and trying to pick off any _arn-tei_ that warble within a foot of his chair. It feels satisfactorily malevolent. He’s in a good mood.

                Bones messages him after a while and calls him down to sick bay for what Jim hopes will be some manly bitching—Intha is holed up in its quarters, ignoring them all, so Bones might have a moment to himself—and instead Jim is met with a sight that disturbs him maybe a little more than it should.

                Bones has one of the _arn-tei_ on his examination table and it… genuinely doesn’t look so good. Patches of fur have fallen out and the rest is going sort of grayish. Bones crosses his arms and just squints at Jim.

                Okay. Jim is not going to respond to this in anything but a calm, rational manner, just because Captain Intha was being overly dramatic. It’s one sick _arn-tei_. All the rest of them are fine, and if this were serious, Jim really doubts he’d be looking at the thing without it being behind a glass wall. Chills prickle at his spine anyway. “What is it?” Jim asks, approaching the creature.

                “What, can’t you guess?” Bones’s sarcasm is a comfort in these hard times. He joins Jim in standing over the _arn-tei_. It purrs weakly, and twitches a little bit. Jim has an inappropriate surge of sympathy. “Old age.”

                Jim blinks up at him. He is abruptly concerned about Bones’s mental state, because the doctor he knows does not call his captain down to hold vigils over a creature dying over perfectly natural causes. “Uh,” Jim says.

                “Stuff it,” Bones replies, reading into Jim’s tone flawlessly. “Yesterday it was perfectly healthy. It went from the prime of its life to decrepit in under 24 hours.”

                Ha ha!  Ohhhh look, the chills are back!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT UPDATED! How did this happen? It is a mystery to us all. Especially me. I am the most mystified, followed by Bones and the strange dying fuzzbunny.  
> Anyway, this chapter probably isn't quite up to standard, but don't quit on me yet. I am slowly but surely recovering something approaching a stable mental state and that means writing niblets for you! Also, new formatting cause this is SO MUCH EASIER than the one I was using.


	11. Chapter 11

Jim’s jaw tenses. “Bones? I’m pretty sure that’s not how old age works.”

The look Jim gets is probably fair. _No_ , Bones’s eyes communicate. _As a doctor with years of medical expertise and experience, I am completely unaware of how old age works. Please tell me more._

“There’s no immune irregularity,” he points out. “Nothing like a disease or an infection. Just neurophysical degeneration consistent with old age.” Jim does not have medical training. Jim raises his eyebrows. Bones rolls his eyes. “It’s like a switch flipped and told the little guy that he was old as balls all of a sudden. Now he’s dying.”

Jim looks back at the fur ball and struggles with the desire to feel sympathetic over a creature he’s been cultivating abiding hatred for over the past week. “Is it affecting any of the others?” Oh god, if it is. If it is, Jim is going to have to explain this to Captain Intha. He probably doesn’t know the true meaning of insufferable, but he’s definitely going to find out because the universe hates him.

“Not sure,” says Bones, which is highly helpful. The doctor shrugs a shoulder. “This one was all systems normal until this morning too. Just because they seem fine doesn’t mean they actually are.”

Jim groans in the back of his throat. “I’m going to have to talk to Intha.”

“Way to be a responsible adult, kid,” says Bones. Like he didn’t just call Jim down here so he wouldn’t have to do it himself. He claps Jim on the shoulder. “Two more days.”

 _Thank god_ , thinks Jim, and begins the miserable journey to Intha’s quarters. The merchant answers by comm, just proving how mature everyone involved in this is. “Yes?” He answers, and manages to sound harried, like Jim interrupted him from something important. Jim figures that this is probably for the best.

“Captain Intha, this is James Kirk. I’m here to notify you of a possible epidemic among your cargo.”

“Oh,” says the merchant.

Jim waits, but apparently that’s it. ‘Oh.’

“Uh,” Jim responds intelligently. “We’re doing our best to contain it. The affected individual has been quarantined, and we’ll presently return all _arn-tei_ to the cargo holds in order to prevent the spread of infection.”

“That sounds wise,” Intha responds, and again, that’s it. “Take whatever course of action you thing would be best, Captain.” Jim’s eyebrows go up immediately. That is entirely out of character. “I authorize you to deal with my cargo as we see fit.”

Fuck this, something about the situation doesn’t add up. Cutting the bullshit, Jim demands, “Captain Intha, you sure you don’t want to take a more proactive approach here?”

“No,” says Intha. Jim gropes for his phaser. He can have this door hacked in under five minutes and all his instincts are telling him to get it the fuck done. Then Intha comes up with, “I’m molting. It’s a rather private affair, if you please. Kindly depart.”

Jim pauses, standing on the border between how fishy this smells and potentially trespassing into cultural insensitivity. His hand is still on his phaser. “Right,” he says after a moment. “I’ll just—leave you to that. As you were.”

Intha doesn’t respond. Jim chews his lip for a moment and then contacts the Bridge. “ _Enterprise_ , this is your captain speaking,” he says, fighting to keep his tone from slipping into paranoia. “We have a possible outbreak of infection among the _arn-tei_ population. I’m calling for all _arn-tei_ to be removed to the cargo holds prepared for them at this time. All non-essential personnel, consider yourselves conscripted to collection duty for the next two hours.”

Which is just what they get for letting the damn things climb all over everything anyway, so Jim refuses to feel even slightly bad.

For a moment, Jim pauses, and questions whether he should involve Spock in this situation. He’d normally do it just for kicks, if nothing else, but…

It’s better to leave Spock alone for a little while. Especially when this is probably nothing.

Jim’s just paranoid.

He’s stressed.

Right.

He should get back to the bridge.

Instead Jim whips out his PADD and reads through the official files Starfleet sent him again. They are as boring as they were the first time around. Captain Intha is a reasonably not-slimy merchant from one of the border planets of the Third Quadrant, and he deals primarily in exotic wildlife. The _arn-tei_ are popular pets on Marken-II, but parasites wiped out a bunch of them, blah blah blah, Captain Intha has brought over a great deal of reasonably priced replacements. _Arn-tei_ are a Level I species—nonviolent, herbivorous, and clean enough. The greatest threat the Enterprise is expected to face are the ones to its replicator supplies because the fuzzbunnies eat their weight in grain twice a day.

Yeah, okay. All that is patently unhelpful.

Jim scans through a few less official searches of his own, turning up the same repetitive information. Everything insists that he has nothing to be worried about (and that Intha’s species of Kwuolt do in fact molt every few months, which is accompanied by some video feeds and the revelation that there is not enough alcohol in the _world_ ). Jim is getting pretty damn tired of getting told not to worry. He outright hacks his way into some private messaging systems. This way he finds out that there have actually been some _arn-tei_ -related deaths recorded (some complete idiot suffocated himself under a mound of them) and that the _arn-tei_ have mild telepathic calming properties. Which explains why Intha’s presence suddenly made Jim’s entire Bridge crew need to get themselves a fluffy best friend, but isn’t exactly terrifying. Jim’s dealt with a fair number of telepaths at this point, and if his Bridge crew is still functional enough to be scanning space and doing barrel rolls with twenty or so fuzzbunnies purring everywhere, whatever telepathic influence they have isn’t strong enough to be a problem.

One message informs Jim like this is some great secret: _arn-tei_ are related to the tribble.

No. Inconceivable. Jim never would have guessed.

After twenty minutes of grinding his way through a ten-page untranslated Kwuolt article trying to persuade Jim that the _arn-tei_ is a majestic and complex thing, he calls it. Jim can’t make it through another one. Not without having to shoot one of fluffy little bastards. Bones can handle this. Jim will give him a twenty-four hour period to handle things quietly.

Not really Jim’s style, but okay, look. Spock doesn’t need another reason to question to Jim’s leadership. Jim _knows_ he’s off his game. He knows there is a fine line separating paranoia from intuition. This looks more like the former, and Jim can handle on his own.

(He has no idea who he needs to prove that to, and seriously, cannot wait for this escort mission to be over already.)

Fortunately, there’s plenty to distract him from the ongoing Woe of Spock once Jim’s shift ends. His ship is effectively overrun. The fuzzbunnies are everywhere. They are hiding in corners of the holodeck. They are making cozy little nests on top of the turbolift. They drop from the ceiling. They are in the _air vent_ s.

Jim has genuinely had nightmares like this.

Bones refuses to feel bad for Jim no matter how many times Jim messages him about this either. No more of the _arn-tei_ have fallen victim to the creeping geriatric syndrome, that is all that Bones contributes to Jim’s suffering. Jim gets to keep right on fishing them out of the maintenance shafts. Bonest tells him it will build character.

This is disheartening enough, but when Jim looks up from composing his sarcastic response, Spock is right in front of him, holding an armful of fluff. Jim’s brain leaps from _quick, think of something that will make it sound like you weren’t stalking him_ to the slightly more reasonable, _Of course you’re not following him, you’re both cleaning fuzzy irritation out of the wall circuitry_. Jim gets out from in front of the turbolift mutely.

Spock just gives Jim a murmured "captain" and walks past. Jim waits for the adrenaline to stop pooling in his extremities and overcomes the desire to order someone to play chess with him. He then gets back to work.

Look at all this professionalism. Intha is rubbing off on him.

By the time Jim makes it to bed (scans show barely half of the fuzzbunny biomass is back where it’s supposed to be) he has a message from Spock, who wants off bridge duty. Something about not feeling well. Jim approves it and does not manage to wonder whether this is because he ran into Spock in the hallway.

This is a stupid thought. Spock is still on the ship. Presumably Spock made his decision knowing that he would have to actually be around and interact with his captain on a day-to-day basis. Also, his captain is acting like an idiot and would like to go to sleep now.

Jim sends Bones one last message falsely claiming to have alcohol that Bones doesn’t get any of, and then closes his eyes.

\---

He opens them again knowing in his soul that something has gone very, very wrong.

Nothing but the ship’s cool hum breaks the silence, the darkness is absolute, and in the shadows, Jim can feel something move.

There is a fuzzbunny on his face. It has begun cooing at him.

With a grunt of annoyance, he relocates it off the bed (with a swipe of his pillow) and sits up, feeling groggy. Jim instantly knows he’s forgetting something. He’s supposed to go see somebody. He’s halfway to the door before it occurs to him to put on pants.

Jim sighs sadly at the wall. He can recognize the sort of day this will be.

Hopefully the rest of his brain will catch up with him outside. Jim steps out, yawning, and rubbing his eyes in a very captainly sort of way. He stops short about two steps out of his room and yeah, that can’t be good.

There is a swarm of fuzzbunnies parked outside his door. They trail down the hall and around the corner like a midget chorus line, all of them cooing. The combined effect is like an insect drone and as it penetrates Jim’s skull he can feel his thoughts turning to soup. He realizes that thing? The one he’s forgetting? That would be finding Spock. This qualifies as DEFCON Goddammit and Spock is really helpful in moments like these. For now, Jim draws his phaser.

But he’s in luck, as it turns out. Spock is coming down the hall right at this very moment. He looks grimly determined and Jim’s world locks onto him and makes sense again. Jim smiles in relief, for the half second where he can look at his First and still think.

That’s before the _arn-tei’_ s cooing goes silky in his ears and he remembers what he was forgetting a second time. Heat and skin. All the blood in Jim’s body lurches in Spock’s direction while his thoughts collapse into dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so Classical's update is still being muchos an asshole, but know that it is mostly written and there is no indefinite hiatus on it. I just kind of suck at writing transitiony things without boring myself into apoplectic fits.  
> The next chapter should be up in a reasonable amount of time, but my update schedule is so dead I don't think any force in the 'verse can resurrect it.  
> And on that note--Jim is so toast.


End file.
